Speaker 1: Starts with the wrong kind of silence, the Iowa when
the strip Malsnian signs still blink off, frost colorless, the
parking lot painted the sodium vapor yellow, and the landscapes too,
still punctuated by the whine of a single semi passing
and the state highway and nothing else. I pull into
my usual spot of five eighteen and fifteen minutes before Nalla.
The opener unlocks the side door. My key fop dangles uselessly.
The blinds over the front entrance are drawn. Few things
unsettle long time retail staff, but I register instantly that
not a soul has beaten me here. Inside, the air
carries the preheat tang of metal shelving and floor polish.
I flick the fluorescents alive. They wake reluctantly, patches blooming overhead.
Some tubes bits and flicker like nats caught in amber.
But mostly even in that artificial daylight, the place feels
caught out in hollow. I scan the end caps, prepared
for a spill or any sign that last night's closer cutacorner.
Nothing fresh, just faded footents in front of seasonal displays
and the cinder block walls, throwing back a blank stare.
I set my theramis in the break room, drop my
jacket across my locker's hook, and decide to start on
the daily o versokkant. That means unlocking the inventory cage,
a chin and conclosure tucked at the back of lumber,
locked by batted padlock with its own infuriating quirks. As approach,
a faint, erratic buzzing interrupts my mental checklist, too persistent
for a dying light. The sound leads me to the
cage itself. It's coming from the inside, somewhere just past
the mesh at ig height. There's something taped in the
interior of the door, a folded white sheet barely held
by unmraveling masking tape. I retrieve the key, hands a
little clumsy and slide open the door with a screeched
echoes down lumber's rigidile, plucking the paper free, I unfold
a resignation ladder in Morgan Shops. Slanted print. She'stated it
last night. I can still smell a haze of tonering
where her name form's tight lips at the bottom. A
careful professionalism shadowed by something urgent, almost desperate in the
way certain words lean into the page. To management, I
regret that I can no longer fulfill my duties. It
has become impossible. I can not ignore what I've heard
or what I felt working nights, the carts rolling when
the aisles are empty, the hum when unlocking up alone,
and the sensation that someone something is always on the
far side of the chin link. I hope this is
enough warning. Please stop putting people back here alone. She
finishes with a false apology for any inconvenience caused. And
there's a scroll ps check the turnover lists. I hope
you see it too. A cold spot forms across my
shoulders in the chill draft that seeps beneath the cage door.
Above the door, the fulllorescent ballastcrown. The light blows out
to a flicker. Then stad is There's nothing, no shape,
no movement. But I keep looking, scanning a mess of
over stock march in plastic wrapped hoses. I call Morgan's
number twice, then three more times, after leaving the cage,
straight to voicemail. Her text road is weeks old. I
shoot off au OK and this awyer note please call me.
But the quiet, mixy vibration of my phone sounds ridiculous.
When I unlocked the office, the clip would have turnover
list sits at its usual post by the door, but
today the stack is inch thick. The list on top,
printed at closed last night is heavier than usual. Name's
tasks and completed a checkbooks is bleak together. I press
my thumb over Morgan's signature, lined up with a resigned
in thin red ink. The resignation letter, so warm for
my grip, sits heavy in my pocket. As I stand there,
I catch the faint echo of metal rolling just cause,
I tell myself. Lined up along the fire wall, but
none move. The store is empty, every cart in place.
The day before anything went wrong, it ran business as usual.
I start with the mundane, adjusting a crooked row of
bait buckets, double checking the duct tape endgap, gathering the
returns that always seem to find their way into seasonal
even off season. The early opener, Nolan arives humming his
own off key version of a radio jingle, brown apron,
wrinkled hair in a loose bun. He glances at the
open office door. Manager called already, he asks, pouring burnt
coffee into a plastic maug Morgan said she needed a week,
but hasn't shown. Guess it just means more overtime for us.
I shrug, eyeing the untouched doughnut box on the brick
room table. I found her resignation can't get through to her,
not even text. He processes this for a beat. She
never no show ever, this gravity in his voice, no drama,
just an old timer's worriiness. Then, as if by reflex,
he pivots to routine, opening the back gate, prepping the safe,
talking through the member coupans, the way you do after
years of shifting awkward news around until it dissolves. Our
staff is a patrick of regulars and new faces. J
Mon prodesk, who transferred up from Valdosta Pale, one of
the university hires, with a chirpy laugh that cuts even
the slimmest tension. Reggie, our eternal knight stoker face cut
with harsh lines in a trap fisherman's turn. Maria, an
assistant who works closing shifts and wheels rule compliance like
a shield. At the top, there's Cecilia, a manager who
greets every hiccup with brittle positivity and a set jaw.
After the doors open to customers, the day takes forward
in the usual way. Inventory counts rounds through the garden center,
where a stray robin pecks at dropped seeds, bounder about
busted barcodes, the ritual of retreat into the narrow hallway
behind Paine desk to swap beans about dum customer questions.
There's a comfort in the patterns. I've worked here nearly
fourteen years, mid Superbasa for a few quietly grandfather, despite
the rotating cast of higher ups. While every regional update
brings a thread of li or new efficiency metrics, I
hold on to the small dignity of being steady, saint breakfast,
same horse, voiced Regulus, say locker since the remodel, But
today something leaks beneath the surface. Morgan's locker sits at
the end of the row combination. Lock still sat sidled
after fated Let's stay safe post her her jackets inside
yellow posts. It stuck above the zipper, reminding her of
Friday's overtime shift. On the bench in front. Someone left
a folded rumor probably pale. Did Morgan hear the nightless?
That makes me bristle a little new High's passing Offen's
eety is folklore. Still the phrase works its way into
looping conversations. Maria remarks more folks gone this month than
all year. Nolan shrugs off the comment, but Jane hesitates
at Locker's handshaking just slightly as he pulls a gatorade free.
By late morning, Cecily does a circuit, her lips stretched
in her practice half smile. We're keeping Morgan on in
the system for now, personal reasons. The words tumble out
too quickly. One Regi grunts that didn't sound personal last night.
She dismisses him with a quick let's keep morale up
or write lots of folks, suggesting false top from the team.
Then she disappears into the manager's office and the door
locks behind her. After the morning rush, I linger in
the locked office, reviewing the turnover lists. The stack has grown,
more sheets marked, resigned, or transferred, sometimes in as silly
as neat cursive, sometimes with a hasty XS and the
name covered and white out. There's a hole in the
record keeping. On a hunch, I flipped to last month
shifts seven gone in three weeks, two lumber three, garden
two on seasonal. None gave more than a night's notice.
That afternoon, A catch snippets as people filter through the
staff kitchen. Knocks on the wall back by irrigations where
it came from the outside, but there's no door to
Someone move the ladders again, but no one claims it.
Do the lights in pain keep going out for three
minutes at a time. Manager says, replaced the bulbs, but
they're brand new. At lunch, I try to lose myself
in habit, rearrange the fridge or stock the napkins, eat
microwave soup in the ancient plastic bowl I've used for years.
I try not to picture Morgan's letter or the chain
link mesh called against my skin when I pulled it loose.
Home is little more than a two room apartment backing
onto the highway. The walls are thin and the heat
loud but forgettable. I sleep with a fun on may
Tea and watch documentaries well past midnight, but the silence
from my phone nags were the feeling of unfinished business.
The main comfort comes from these unremarkable routines, Grabbing groceries
at the end of a shift, running laundry, saying good
night to my cat as she coils at my toes still,
I start to notice the way work inside. He sneaks
its way into my offires, tailing me as I walk
from car to building, hastitting when my footfuls echo little
too loud in the stairwell. After dusk, rumors have a
half life in retail. Even so, there's freshly charged nervousness
crackling through our morning huddles. The last few days, two
folks left a person on again. Jane picks up three
shifts he's not supposed to, covering garden and lumber for
workers who changed to availability at the last second. Upbreak.
Pale leans over a voicelow. Morgan was looking tired till
last week. She traces a line on my palm. Ye
get the same sections enough, it gets weird. I review
the new turnover sheet, dragging a highlighter down the left column.
It startles me. Almost every person who left God signed
the closing block for one of them three areas garden,
seasonal or lumber between nine p m And two EM
Sometimes for days in a row. The resignation column stacks
up in the same time blocks. After lunch, Reggie proaches
voice even rougher you doing close next week? He doesn't
meet my eye, instead inspecting a loose screw on the
service desk. If they put you in garden light swap
with me. Last time, all the carts ended up by
the chain link. Nobody put them there. Stuff. Keep talking
in half sentences. They say the garden timers are broken,
but I heard them click every eye the closer before
Morgan said she'd quit a she had to shut dum
lumber by herself again over by hardware. Two days shift
to swap assignments without hesitation, neither wanting seasonal alone. After
ten p m. Cecily calls another meeting that afternoon. Pleasantry's weaponized.
In her smile, gossip is making everyone nervous. I know
turnovers unfortunate, where screening security tape and will address anything founded,
but let's focus on customers. Okay. The half circle nods.
She gestures at the bulletin board, recently wiped of complaint notices,
and I catch a tape over one of the corner
security camel NDS is loppy and quick, like someone didn't
want it though, but was in a hurry. Later, I
circle the aisles one more time before heading home. And
find a lung cat blocking the back of rack and
plumbing perch across the splay legs of an empty pallet.
No one saw who left it. I half smoke cigarette
sits by the wheels. Strange since no one is supposed
to smoke inside, which means someone duck a prot call
in a hurry. On the way out, I overhear Pale
whispering to Jane Boddy exit. It's not worth it. You'll
get it if you work the light hift long enough.
Morgan figured it out. Ask them what they all last Friday.
James sees me in finches, then waves it off as nerves.
That night at home, I brought my phone on the
table with a notepad, plodding the last month's night shifts.
In every resignation, my chart starts to show a shape,
an undeniable block of clustered repeated departure dates all pin
to night shifts in the same three sections. The pattern
isn't perfect, but it's enough to make me pull the
sheets from the turn of a stack and start comparing
them by hand highlight in the same streaks Morgan warned about.
I can't stop thinking about that letter, about the sound
of rolling cut when none are supposed to move about
empty aisles about Morgan's injunction to check the turnover lists.
Sleep doesn't come for a long time. I decide not
to wait for management to explain anything, and begin digging deeper.
Each night after work, I bring home a fresh turnover
print out, tracing the columns of resignations, time blocks, and
location goes with the kind of grim focus. I searched
my phone for numbers of people who left in the
past two months. The list is longer than I'd realized.
Some are just numbers, no photo, no save name, just
the generic blue icon of a stranger who once works
side by side with me through a busy weekend or
year end frey drop. It takes four tries, but finally
a former seasonal stocker named hem answers. His voice is clipped, breathless,
as if he's just finished running. What do you want?
Just checking in? I say, keeping my tone light. He
left quickly last week. A pause. Then it's better if
you don't call. There's a strain in his words, his
voice ragged and overexposed. If you keep working nights, you'll
get it to He ends the call before I can press,
and afterward texts only, don't talk about it at work.
The next morning, I put my name down to cover
an upcoming night's stock shift, ostensibly to help with a
big or stocking trap, really because I need to see
for myself. Reggie, who has always claimed he hits company
during freight, just grins. If it's your first late one
in a while, watch the back racks. Sometimes the carts
move on their own. The night in question, dusk falls early.
The air outside is cold enough to burn, and my
breath forgs as I unlock the gate with Reggie and
Jane trailing behind. James carrying a clipboard and looks almosteale.
You really want to stock tonight? Just covering for extra work?
I lie, but my hands are clammy. I won fifteen
em Most of the others have drifted out, some of
rush goodbyes, others silent shadows ducking through the pro door.
I push carts through seasonal feeling, each rubber wheel protest
against the wax floor, the light and lumberfliquers, the distant
drone of the h truck system alow static undertone. My
walkie crackles, but no one speaks. The air is bruised
with expectation. I pass into garden. Half the lights are
off for the night, and a breeze filters through the
lock glass doors. In the center aisle, I count six
carts chained up all in order. I needl to tie
one of the trash liners. And that's when I hear it,
a cart rolling slow, quietly, wheels clicking, but I can
see every single car there. Still my hot lurches. I
look to the left, past the packages of weed barrier
and pallets of topsail. There's a fleeting glimpse of figure,
too tall and oddly shaped, ducking between shells. I call
out Morgan that, but silence answers me deep and wide.
When I round the next dial, the space is empty.
The walky crackles again, static at first, then what might
be whispered syllables that flatten out to humming. I press
record on my phone and hold it up, willing the
sounds to resolve into clarity. But the playvick is dead space,
just the baseline hum of cheap fluorescent lights. I phil
watch through the mesh of the inventory cage. I approach
hot pounding, and inside nothing but bags of quick crete,
a sack of bird seed, rows of shovels, stacked head
to handle. Still, the sense of being seen is sharp
and immediate. I pull the chainling ship behind me and
counters slowly as I can. After twoum, I slip into
the office, determined to check the cameras. I scroll through
the security monitor, but the feed for the past ire
is just a frozen gray rectangle. The tie coat skipping
the other sections are visible only lumber in the garden
aisle where I heard those sounds are erased. I five
and the others begin returning. Hale notices a USB thumb
drive in the break room table, a generic unlabel stick.
He anyone lose this, she asks, but no one claims it.
We leave it beside the sign and sheet. But something
about it makes me uneasy. When my shift finally ends,
attit weighs me down, raising the edge of my nose
until the dry flashes again in my mind. During the
drive home, I pocket it, uncertain if the urge is
curiosity or dread. Back in my kitchen, coffee scalding my tongue,
I consider what to do with the U S B.
Finally I open my lap up, no branding, nothing on
it but a set of files, state stamped all m
P three's none over ninety seconds. Each is named with
a sequence of numbers, just enough to show a kind
of vescalating series. I listen to the first static, like
wind toweling through a gap in metal siding, and in
a far away voice, unmistakably Morgan's clipped and hushed. You
hear it, don't you, she says to some one I
can't place. Don't look at the meshed, if the carts
are out, don't open the gate, don't be back there.
Whind closing, a click, then disordered breathing and a keening
sound to electronic but not completely synthetic, as if something
is wedged between mechanical shriek and human whimper. Next file
is Stoker's voice, a young man by the accent. Is
something behind the chain link? I saw, Hans or I
thought I did the night lists? They know we're alone.
Each file ends abruptly, the last cut off mid sentence,
replaced by a long dragging sand as of metal on concrete,
and the final file dissolves in a hallo static and
a galp disail, as if someone just woke up screaming
and stop themselves. As I open the folder, I realize
every file is recorded days before those same staff members
resigned were simply stopped coming at all. There's a lattice
work of disappearance is mated by sound, fear filling the
silent gaps between. It dawns on me that every resignation
follows a night like this, particular rotation through those three aisles,
a close encounter with something that presses right up against
the edge of reason, disguised as routine turnover, buried in paperwork.
It's late by now, almost pre m When someone knocks
at my door. The sound is soft, deliberate. When I
open it, no one's there, just the crisp slip of
cow stock tucked carefully against the frame. My chest tightens
as I pick it up, a plastic palette tag from
the store, stamp with to day's date in black marker.
I stand there a long minute in the flickering hallway light,
the USB drives still plugged into my laptop, the sound
of humming echoing in my ears. I do not sleep.
I will not sleep, not with the tone of a
list growing on my kitchen counter, names crossed out in
hands I recognized too well, and Morgan's urgent warning repeating
in my mind. Like a drum beat in a locked,
dark wherehouse. I returned to the kitchen table, set the
palate tag next to my growing stacks of lists, and
stare at the screen set as blue glow as it
drifts across the laptop. The air in my apartment, usually
stale by morning, prickles with a cold. Thus less about
temperature and more about anticipation. I close my eyes and
let the background hum of the refrigerator and traffic all
the fear. But my mind keeps sprinting for rotation shots
for resignation dates, and short, sharp phrases for Morgan's letter.
The routines of the last few days blow. What started
as curiosity is sharpened into a quiet obsession. It's not
just about Morgan anymore, or even about the odd nocturnal disturbances.
There's a feeling of being drafted into something ongoing, something
intentionally kept obscure. The USB file's play on repeat in
my memory whisperspecking through static, a voice pleading, a thought
of metal echoing in a hollow space. I start to
wonder who left the drive and why they wanted me
to find it. At dawn, a poorly cormed coffee barely
tasting it. The sun has encrusted the horizon, but the
first up lines of traffic light along the highway against
the simmering nerves. I begin to lay everything out in
physical form, all the turn over less Morgan's letter, a note,
but crowned with hand drawn time lines. I use high
lighters red fur resigned yellow for shifts, and garden green
for lumber, purple for seasonal. The pattern is impossible to
disentangle from chance. By now the names and dates overlap.
There was ignation spill into blocks right after a night shift,
especially in those three corners of the building. Gone is
the comfort of routine. Instead, the task of tracking grows
into its own kind of compulsion. My phone dings a
group throred about a potlet, perst pone nothing from Morgan.
Every time I see a number I don't recognize a
little panic Toagu's BLUs seven forty five. I am awake
enough to consider sleep, but it feels wrong to crawl
into bed with half the staff roster stacked on the
table and a physical artifact from the store just inches away.
I try Morgan's number one more time voicemail. Part of
me wonders if she's coasting everyone. If this is her
way of breaking with the past, leaving us peace to
gather her anxiety and warnings and coded notes and recordings.
But I know her better than that. She used to
say that if she ever left, she'd take a thank
you on every locker. Never just vanish outside. The world
starts its own routines, Neighbors hustling to their cars, kids
bundle for school, the hiss of a bus breaking at
the corner. I watch, feeling a step removed from it, all,
hovering between the safety of daylight and the strangeness the
store now represents mid morning. I shower and try to
let the water chase off the residue of hern ease.
But instead I think through every person who's left in
the last month. I picture the faded faces in the
employee bulletin board, clipped between rotters and company Halloween invitations.
A few had greeted me with practice easy waves. Others
never stayed long enough for more than a nod in
a hallway. I recall Pale's nervous habits of tracing circles
by the edge of a counter when she talks, and
Jane's reluctance to lock up alone. I start less names,
rolls sections last shift. For the records I can access,
the majority are clustered on the same rotation, just as
the data suggested. Just afternoon, I head to the store
for my schedule shift. The dry feels longer than usual,
the parking lot more exposed. There's an added measure of
deliberateness in locking my cart, checking from my wallet, gladcing
over my shoulder. When I enter, Cecilia is already posted
at the service desk, eyes sharp, her smile thinner than ever.
She nods to me, but says nothing about the growing
stack of turnover sheets. To day, Reggie and Marie are
both out short notice, no explanation. Jane is running the
pro desk, unusually pale and quiet, tapping a pen against
the side of his clipboard with short, nervous flicks. I
decide to approach him after logging in at the register.
You are right, I ask Koisov, hoping not to speak
him into silence. He hesitates, glancing away, then drugs A
long week, had four shifts swap overnight and it's not
even Thursday. He cracks a thin smile, but it doesn't
reach his eyes. Feels like nobody wants nights any more understandably, ethink.
He says nothing else, and I don't push. The day
moves forward with forced cheer. The floor manager puts on
music from the overhead PA network, but the playlist cycles
too quickly, skipping tracks every minute. I catch a glimpse
of Cecily conferring with another manager by the camera monitor,
both heads bent low, talking and clip whispers. Half Way
through the day, I took away the turn of a
list in my locker and swap into the floor. Every
aisle feels hyper exposed. I can't shake the paranoia of
being watched, though all I see a customers shuffling between
plumbing and electrical. At one point, a call goes out
for a price check and garden. I volunteer, more out
of reflex than enthusiasm. But as I enter the section,
the memory of the night shift presses in the precise
set up, the cold air pooling just beyond the sliding doors,
the unnatural stillness between product displays. I check the carts, once,
then twice, all chain, all accounted for. Still, an edge
travels down my spine, a memory of that rolling sound
in an empty space. At lunch, the brick room is subdued.
Paile sat scrolling her phone, herbud slack around her neck,
a furrow in her pro I sit across and quietly
unpack a sandwich. We eat in silence until she leans forward,
elbows on the table. You covering clothing next week? She
asks for we so low, I have to lean in
to hear. Maybe, I admit why. She looks away, picking
out the edge of her napkin. Don't do it alone.
Last time I did see so close. I kept hearing
someone call my name from Lamba. There wasn't anyone back there.
She swallows. When I told Marie, she said, don't answer
if it's after midnight, just finish and go. There's a
short and easy pause between us as the overhead vent
hisses to life. I nod. You know Morgan left a
note about hearing things. Ple's eyes go wide and a
shiver traces across her shoulders. She said something about the
nightless right. Jane mentioned it too. I thought it was
just a joke. She frowns, then glances quickly at the clock.
We always have a night list, but this is I
don't know, like if her name's on it too many times,
you just stop looking over your shoulder, She hesitates, Did
you find anything else? I debate, telling her about the
USB the recordings, but something in her posture keeps me cautious.
Just that the lists keep growing and nobody wants to
talk about it. She nods, relief and fear crossing her
face at once. I'm switching to mornings. I don't want
to end up like Morgan just gone. The brick room
stays quiet for a long time after she leaves. The
clock ticks. A janitor's caught rules by the corridor and
from the hallway I hear a faint metallic rattle that's
easy to chalk up to the building settling. Still. I
stay seated awhile, watching through this most glass window at
the steady movement between aisles. When my chief ends, I
head to the office to pick up the latest round
up of paperwork. On their way back, I d to
pass the security moment as the urge to check the
last week's for dis lingering. Cecily catches me, loitering, her
eyes narrowing. Something I can help you with, she asks,
voys clipped, I shake my head, just waiting on the
register tape. She waves her ID badge, unlocking the safe,
but there's a kernel of suspicion in her gaze. She
opens a folder to reveal a sheaf of incident reports,
quickly shoving them as if she realizes too late that
I'm looking. When she leaves, I angle my glance at
the desk on the edge of the folder. The yellowstick,
barely visible reads incident response to rotation night staff. As
the rest of the team trickles up through the rear exit.
I file this away for later. If management is tracking incidents,
then at least someone's connecting the dots behind closed doors.
But there's no comfort in that. It only reinforces that
something outside the daily routine is being actively hidden, contained
by paperwork and internal warnings. On the drive home, the
highway seems emptied, the usual at the horizon, pulling back
ray and featureless, I arrive to find another note slid
under the door of my apartment, playing printed paper blank
except for a number one hundred twelve B. At first,
I have no idea what it refers to, but something
about the ink, the shapedlock lettering, the light's mudge at
one edge feels too deliberate to be random. I sit
with it in my palm attention returning again and again
to the stores, numbered ales, sections and locations that appear
on the turnover sheets. One hundred twelve be matches the
curb for seasonal Baxter Quire found the out of place
carth at night the web coincidence Titans. I spread out
all my documents, laying the note beside the rests and
take photos with my phone in case anything goes missing.
The feeling of being surveiled isn't limited to after ires
at work any more. My own apartment feels too quiet.
Every bump in the hallway seems freighted with significance. That night,
I debate calling in sick, but resolve instead to request
another night's shift, this time officially. Cecilia acts surprised when
I volunteer, eyes, registering the change but not questioning. The
shift is assigned closing Garden and Lumber with jam on
a Thursday. In my gut, there is a sense of
crossing a threshold, stepping out of the safe confines of
avoidance and directly into whatever has been circling the staff.
Night after night, I spend the lead up to the
shift prepping. I test my phone's recording app and stole
a second flashlight. App for redundancy and take a tiny
notebook behind my badge for quick notes. I recount everything
I remember from Morgan's warnings, play the USB files until
their voices are imprinted in the rhythm of my thoughts.
I consider telling someone in outside a friend from a
side work, but stop myself. Who would believe it? The
strange employee turnover at big box store stores are old
as industry itself. Thursday arrives, wet and cold, a load
rissill turn in the parking lot into a sheen of reflections.
Jim meets me inside, head down, backpack already slung over
one shoulder. Last time I do a close for Maria,
he mutters, setting out the order sheets. Just want to
be up before too. We divide inventory and start the
night slow, working through racks of garden houses and cinder blocks.
The lock checkless pin between us. Discomfort in the practicality
is keys and designated pockets, scanning Barkoo's stacking over stock
with the practiced economy of long time employees. But as
midnight edge is closer and the fae of customers dries up,
new noises begin to emerge. A soft, intomittent ping like
metal cord on concrete. The electricum of the stall was
lightly settling deeper, punctuated by a subtle rhythm that's easy
to ignore unless you've been pryed to notice. Around one
thirty m, Jam leads for the restroom, volunteering by implication
to let me finish the seasonal section alone. The air
shift stretching between the silent garden doors and the far
end of lumber Without the scaffold conversation, the sensation of
being watched returns as pointed as a draft down the
back of my neck. I wandered down the aisle as
quietly as possible, phone camera at the ready, pretending to
count inventory. Down At the far end, a car to
its handle, greasy from years of use, sits alone, which
by pallets of an open mulch. I check the chain
linking the others, all intact and broken. This one is separate,
just like the others have found. After ires. Near its wheels,
I spot another slip of printed paper, blank except for
a single tally mark inscribed in firm indelible ink. The
sound clicks in the darker soft roll, first behind me,
then farther down the aisle. I stand upright hot pulse
in by my throat and scan between garden benches and
exposed beams. My phone's flask white traces a path up
and down the metal shelving shadows dance, refusing to resolve
into solid shapes. I try not to imagine what's waiting
at the edge of vision, but every instinct presses for flight. Instead.
I forced myself to return the car to its Jaane,
lipping the padlock through briskly handshaking. As I shut the padlock,
a low echo rolls down the aisle, the distinct clown
of metal gliding with more metal, t far away to
be Jane, but too deliberate to be written off as
settling or drafts. The sound dies out unnaturally fast. I
tap the record button, capturing my breathing, the shuffle of
shoes over linoleum, the faint scrape of metal echoing as
if from behind walls. The phones mike will pick up
everything a hope, but when I pause to play it back,
the only thing audible is a flat electronic common a
growing static. Words are swallowed sounds blundid. I switch to notebook,
writing out everything, time, location, each sensation. A half hour later,
Jamie re Appea's eyes wider than normal. The doors to
the garden shed rattled while I was out front. He
says quickly, nobody's out there. I checked twice and a
he stops himself. Anyway, let's be done. He doesn't want
to linger, neither do I. We finish inventory in silence,
wrap up the closing sweep, and turn off the last
lights in garden and lumber. As we both clock out,
Jane stops at the door, glancing back at the storre's interior.
You ever feel like it's not just rumor? He asks
for its pitch so only I can hear, like the
turnover list knows who's next. I hesitate before replying every time,
and name's added, starts over clean slate, but some one
always takes the same shift. He nods. Marth said, I'm
switching to days one more night, and I don't think
i'll leave it all. We exit together, pushing the side
door open with a kind of shared relief, but as
a heavy dust swing shut behind us, I hear the
recording app cheim the playback function ticking over, even though
I am certain I left it off. I glanced down
at the screen. The new file is time stamped for
two four of em and once again away from shows,
heavy bands of static and a single short spick at
the very end, I listened just long enough to catch
the whisper of my name somewhere inside the band, low
and urgent. It's not Jane, it's not Morgan. It's a
third voice I can't place. Later, at home, I dumped
the newest note in the tally marked paper beside the
other art facts. My kitchen table transformed into a mapp
of concern and inquiry, each item a weaponed and a
journey I didn't choose. I sought the audio files, each
one offering less in terms of clarity more in terms
of implication. Sleep again eludes me. Shadows in the hallway
twist and lengthen, the tick of the clock, refusing to
settle into routine. My cat, normally curled up on the
foot of the bed, retreats under the dresser, and won
emerge as wide and black with reflection outside. The one
of an early bus crinds against the silence. I review everything,
Morgan's folded resignation, unsigned notes, unexplained resignations, voices on lost
USB files, managements, denials, and the building and needs that
now stains both my waking and sleeping iris. I come
to realize, with a cold certainty that Morgan was right.
The turnover is by design, something is waiting to be
triggered by roucine, by repetition, by the slow rotation of
workers through the shadowed dials. If I am next, I
am at least aware, and if I am right, I
am not alone in noticing who have left the pallet tack. However,
scrolled notes with Tally mocks her vestaches together audio warnings
that never quite make it out from behind the static. Tomorrow,
I resolve I will try a different approach, not to
atlast the pattern, but to confront it if I can.
For now, though I wait in the hush of pardownent,
the course of mechanical humming in my apartment plaine counterpoint
to memories of cuts rolling and distant, urgent voices still
muffled by chain Lincoln Stack, I watched the first gray
hints of daylight creep through the blinds, knowing somehow that
the true work of unraveling what's happening at the store
has only just begun. The knock at my apartment door
still echoes in my mind, sharp as a snap branch,
not an accident, not a neighbor of fumbling, not the
innocent claut over city whollway, intentional and punctuated by that
pallette ipe pressed into the gap. The tag sits under
my kitchen lamp, backlit numbers, bold and implacable. Morning brings
no cloudy, only a prickling sense of having crossed some boundary.
I can't pretend anymore that this is just rob and
legend of stress. I step back to the table, scanning
the list's receipts, Morgan's note, the tally marks grap and
the USB drive plugged in and faintly humming. I try
to eat, but my hand trembles spoon knocking against the
rim of a ball until milk slushes over. The refrigerator's
gentle hum clicks off in the same moment as a
gust of wind upside, leaving me with nothing but taut silence.
My feign shivers with another group for a management requesting
overtime coverage for lumber and seasonal. Every time my name
is suggested, the anxiety spikes. I thumbed through new ships,
eyeing any reference to late clothes. Instead of relaxing, I
find myself pacing compiling a timeline on my laptop, Morgan's
sudden exit, Henry's hasty warning knots of resignations. After Garden
and Lumber closes, I add the note with the single tally,
slotting it into the timeline. Every artifact feels like a
bread compointing to the same darkness. I replayed the USB recordings,
pausing each time the static thickens. On the third file,
Morgan's voice returns urgent. If you get this, don't finish
clothes alone, don't run if you hear your name. Something
in her voice, pressed thin, nearly frantic, brings back the
vision of her at the end of a long shift
here and kempt knuckles white on a clip, or checking
the same shelf twice, as if she can fore certainty
by repetition. Sleep is not part of the equation. Now,
I can't keep the paranoia confined to work hours. Shadows
at the window seem a degree too deep. My cat
won't come out from the closet, and the walls give
back every footstep. I log into the old scheduling after
one Morgan used before Corporate rolled out a new system.
The default admin password still works. I click through to
the archive, isolating just the night shifts in lumber Garden
and seasonal over the last four months. The shurone is undeniable.
Most of the highlighted names ev operate from the system
within forty eight hours of their last night shift, and
the only real constant is the rotating assignment of those
three backward styles the night list in coal pixels. The
next step is to try the stor's remote access, a
trick the management team keeps for audits. I use a
board code from an old h R memma, just to
see if this CCT be left to leak clues. One
directory after another comes back empty or redacted, especially on
the nights before a resignation. Whole chunks of the digital
log vanish. The foul trees look like something nor away
the evidence rather than cleared it out on purpose. Tie
Field's delayed stretch to a point of vibration. I should
call someone, flag the still labor authority or even the police.
But nothing has concrete, no crime except turnover, no assault.
But whatever lingers amid those rows of cars, a bureaucracy
allergic to ghosts. I make a final attempt to contact
Morgan's line again, still nothing. It's nearly new. When alert appears,
short stuff for closing to night, irrotation has moved on.
I clicked to sign up, knowing that each time I do,
I tighten the net, bring the pattern closer to his
snapping point. This isn't about bravery, It's about proof and
ending the unknown. I submit my name for garden and Lumber,
flagging the shift as coverage for extra freight. Within minutes,
Cecily confirms, no pushback, no comment. On the drive to work,
every light feels unbearably long, every block of space for
second guessing. The parking lot is nearly empty. Jaane is
there already, head down, sketching nonsense on a receipt pad
in the driver's seat. He joins me as I cross
toward the side entrance, his voice barely audible, Ready for
another night of this? He tries to grin, but the
effect falls away within seconds. Are you a counter? Scanning
the glass for any movement inside? His paws is heavy.
I'm not closing alone, That's all I care about. When
I offer to handle the back half, promising that he
can finish registers and stay near a door, he nods quickly.
Relief cycling through his face. Inside the store feels freshly
polished and cool, loudly prepared, as if management expects some
one to take notes tonight. The ear holds that too
clean reek of lemon disinfectant. Hail's at the customer desk,
earbuds in place, eyes pinched at the corners. Good luck
smiles when our eyes meet. Her shift ends in thirty minutes.
Another to dodge the night rotation. Reggie the groff knit
stocker is out. Maria is swapped for home improvement knock garden.
Even the daytime regular peel out one by one as
the sun sets. An eye before closing, cecilily completes her
walk through, dispensing benign instructions and stiff arm smiles. Her
posture is wrong, tense, protective is embracing for a fight.
She's not planning to win. Shi lingers too long by
the office, clipboard pressed against her chest, voice a shade
too gentle. She tells me, keep the back doors locked tight.
If anything anything seems off, record it and call me dirichte.
There's something brittle inside, de phrasing a confession without the words.
Any updates from Morgan, I ask careful, tilting hopeful she's out, transferred,
not coming back. Her tone is final, wrapped up in
a hush. It's best to let some things set ok
with that, She slips away toward receiving. Her footsteps muffled
by the rubber tread. Most of the shift is swallowed
by drud, tree stacking, fertilizer, checking, hose racks, pricing, clearance, mulch.
James sticks close, shaffing between loading zones, but never lingering
in a single section for long. When I glance up,
I catch him. I belomou security mirrors, as if expecting
something to step in to frame behind him. After close,
the lights begin to drop in banks, one section at
a time, until only the sodium, shop overheads and garden
and lumber burn against the glue. I set my phone
to record voice memo app wide open sound, peeking with
every scrape of a rolling cart. Jane wipes his hands
on his apron and composes himself. We finished together, he says,
stick close. Once the alarms are set, the PA pops
once it's bitter, half warmed words, something mangled than metallic
steentry see cure just enough to chill the air. We
both freeze. Jane meets my eyes panic, forcing his jaw
to clench. There's a shift in the temperature. As we
reached a cage. The draft rises again, as cold as
anything I felt in month, crawling over my skin. That's
not normal, jamehispers, almost apologizing. I check the cots. All
but one are chained at the far end. The last
hits a crooked angle handle pointed down the aisle as
if waiting to be pulled. James hand twitches at his
pocket keys, a nervous rattle, ticking the clipboard. I walk
toward the cot, phone out, flask, light dense in up
and down the mesh. The whole space feels compressed from
the hardware side. A faint hum begins to shade, sharper
than before, more urgent. A voice cracks, slow and rough
through the mesh behind us. Don't at first, It's almost
a grunt of pressure, more than a word. Jane nearly
drops his flashlight. We both retreat a step as the
lights shudder, and a sound like a heavy object scraping
concrete punctuates the air. I tried the cage door it
and locked, which is wrong. I'd latched it before. Rounds
cold washes up my arm As I reach for the handle.
When I pull the gate groans, but something heavy a
shifts inside James Stand's entry behind me. As I draw
the cage open, loud static gnashes my ears from the
phone's live recording, for to me to lower the volume
at head height. Somewhere inside the cage, a voice, more
than one layered thick gasps my name in unison. I
step inside, keeping my phone trained on the length of
the cage. The mesh rose wild fracture reflections from the
far end. A shadow attaches and reforms a mass with
wavering limbs, indistinct but undeniably shaped. I freeze, acutely, aware
of Jane's feet just outside the threshold. Then quicker breath,
a flicker of shape compresses, pushes against the mesh. What
emerges is in a face, but a compulsit made of
dozens of human outlines, eyes flickering, and mouths slack. With
unspoken warning, I fall backward, crashing into shovels and backs
of mulch. I hear several voices at once, not quite shout,
not quite plea, don't let them put your name back
in the list, Wake them and the door won't close.
Then it gottural exhale, wet and final. The lights convulse,
plunging us into darkness, but the mesh is still empty.
Now the only sound is the load stained keening of
wheals somewhere close by, circling just out of side. Jane
Yell's wordless, terrified, his flashlight skaters across some men and
dies as he scrambles for the exit. I stay crouched,
waiting for the shadow to reform or evaporate. Instead, the
cold ebbs nothing but the breath in my throat and
the distant wine from the ceiling vent. My phone is
damp in my palm, the recording time of blinking, but
registering nothing but oceanic static. When I emerge, Jam is
nowhere in view. The store is unnaturally silent, no settling,
no paw, no footsteps. I try every light switches. I
move toward the main corridor, but the overheads refuse to
stutter back down in the garden, the sliding doors are
tight shut. My breath makes a milky film on the glass,
but reveals nothing past my own reflection. A face drawn, exhausted,
small in the fluorescent haze. At the customer service desk
stands Cecilia hunch and still. She watches me approach, then
holds out a clippord, a blank save for turn over
list with all boxes and checked. Did you see them?
Her eyes are too wide, brittle as thin glass. I
don't answer Hunt. I track the resignations because I have to.
She whispers every time it happens. They make me start
the newest, wipe the camera, file the forms, Pretend it's
just attrition. The last time I tried to tell someone,
they transferred me back to clothes and shifts and she falters,
jaw trembling. I can't leave, not any more. There's a
raw beat of silence between us. Just as she starts
to speak again, the sealing flickers to life, FROs a
fulllorescence flash on at once, then settle. The p amits
a burst of static, and then nothing. I watch her
try to compose herself. Don't work after close, especially not
in garden. And whatever you do, don't put your name
on a list again. She shoves a clipboard in my
hands and departs towards the locked office, the click of
her shoes gone within seconds. I regroup, shoving my own
notes and lists into my bag. The audio recording's now useless,
except as proof of something unnamable. The empty aisles feel bigger, more, echoing,
every sound, leaps, each shadow' th RUMs as if alive. Outside,
Jamie stands at the lot's edge, led only by the
boost of security lamps. He meets my eye and shakes
his head. I'm done. That's it for me, he said,
hiss forth flat, don't even ask me to come back inside.
We get in our cause and drive away without saying
anything more, both of us trailing fear, and I'll wake
like an all leak. For a first time, I feel
that not just my job, but ordinary life itself has
been fundamentally rewired. No safe rhythms, no protection left to routine.
My hands tremble, continuously, unable to grip the wheel tight
enough to keep the car from drifting against the bone
white lines of the empty highway. By the time I
reach home, the sun is no more than a suggestion
of pale rim limbing behind rows of faceless apartment blocks.
My hand sought through the artifacts without thinking. U. S. B.
Drive was ignation less Morgan's warning, the tally papers, the
cyclip board, and the brightly red pallette tag. They are
all pieces, and I am left of the full picture
turnover is not error or an efficiency, or simply the
corporate churren of underpaid workers is deliberate a containment. Every
time another staffer reaches the wrong end of too many
night shifts, the rosser refreshes itself. The building keeps the
secret by refreshing its memory, and any one who notices
can only warn by leaving themselves. I open my laptop,
prepping to send anonymous emails, first to other staff members
than to outside contacts, the local paper, a labor board,
a friend who hosts a radio show about board, workplace stores.
I attach photos of everything, the resignation letters, the tally
mark notes, the records of missing CCTV footage, the list
of former employees who left with warnings were vanished entirely.
I make coppies of the USB audio files, even if
the contents are mostly static and broken voices. I don't
know if it will accomplish anything. Management holds the power.
They can blame anxiety, gossip, even sabotage, and the physical
evidence as a way of disappearing or being explained away.
But if I don't act now, I will become just
another empty chipbooks on a new list, eraised and quietly replaced,
the warnings buried behind tone of a paperwork and the
hush of a silence. Doore. At THREEEM I type a
resignation letter with careful, precise wording. I no longer feel
safe or able to perform my job responsibilities. Please do
not schedule staff alone in lumber garden or seasonal aisles
after close. Please watch the tapes. Please, for the sake
of staff, do not ignore what has happened. I will
not return. I print out a copy, slip my badge
and keys inside, and weigh the envelope with what evidence
will fit into the Next morning, I head to the
store for the last time. Management greets me with thin
lip smiles, not asking for explanation. Cecilia is nowhere to
be seen. Reggie's locker it is cleaned out and James
is left half open, clotted with looser seats and energy
drink cans of monument tournkes. It too rapid to bother organizing.
I slipped my notice under the manager's door on the
pinboat outside, I take a copy of Morgan's resignation to
the cork, weighted down with two fresh paper clips under it.
I add a Handrton addendum, check the turnoverless, don't sail lad,
don't go back alone. The drive home is nearly silent
only the drone of my engine. Unwilling to hurry or delay,
my phone stays dark. I switch it off, then pull
the battery, just to be saved at newion. Staff begin
to text, asking what prompted the mass exodus, Jame has quit,
Pale submitted a transfer, and several others are asking about
internal postings. Why. Evening Cecilia sends out a corporate member
shutting down all eight shifts and lumber and garden for renovations.
The next day, an email circulates undergoing operational audit expect
temporary changes to shift scheduling. The lockdown is swift and clinical.
All records of the prime month's resignations vanish from the portal,
and the CCTV ark ever sets to blank. Rumors rush
ahead of any official communication staff whisper of an incident
that prompted the audit. Others claim which our representatives are
on site, combing through the building with clipboards and matching
all pending departures with new contractual reassurances. But beneath the
flood of sanitized communications, there is only growing quiet, the
kind that rings out from spaces freshly emptied, where every
echo carries a warning. The week passes slowly, sleep dances
just out of reach. The dark calm of suspicion persists,
especially in the liminal hours after midnight, when the contours
of familiar spaces mount into nightmouse. Sometimes in my half dreams,
I sea lines of carts chain tighter, entire aisles cordoned
off with yellow tape, the faces of lost colleagues flickering
behind mesh greens, every unfamiliar sound, and the apartment transforms
into the metallic snarl of a rolling cart. Half a
dozen times I catch myself reaching for the notebook, resolving
to forget everything. The resignation files archive, the audio clips deleted,
the ills tredded, but guilt prevents it. Instead, I re
read Morgan's warning, the frantic tone hidden beneath layers a
professional apology. One night after the audit, my doorbell rings.
I freeze, expecting another attack, another note, but its only silence.
The corridor beyond my peep hole empty still. Every nocturnal
sound rings ladder, I say, once I hear my name
called not quite in a neighbor's tone, not quite audible,
but scraping the back of my consciousness, like gravel dragged
on tire. I sleep with the lights on. The final
straw comes when I drive by the shutter shell of
the store, epitosodium lit caution tape, card bore tip to
every glass surface. Movement in the farisle flickers a silhouette.
I can't place, hunch between rose pushing a single cart.
As I slow at the intersection, cold sweat trickles down
my arm. The badge pin to the figures iprim flashes
Morgan's I think the movements are awkward, strangely deliberate, as
if some one is replaying a shift by rope. I accelerate,
the shape, growing smaller in the rear view. Something inside
me pulling toll to recognition that whatever hovered there waited
for its next name on the list. When I get
home that night, a note waits in my mailbox, a
marked siled with transparent tape inside a single line, handwritten
in Morgan's familiar slant, thank you for listening. Don't come
back after close. I tuck it away with the others,
but sleep eludes me again. The silence feels almost anticipatory,
to reaching with suppressed electricity. Every so often I wake
to the dull rumble of wheels on laminate, faint but
insistent echoing, with a familiarity that makes the hair on
my neck rise. My apartment, usually centuary, hums with daftershocks.
I unplug every appliance i can. The cat still refuses
to come at I tell myself that it is over.
The evidence set, the store closed, the warning posted, the
pattern broken, Yet the air never seems to fully clear.
The next evening, dusk falls oily and slow in the
building's hallway. The light bulbs flicker gently, humming in their sockets.
I open the window, searching for a breeze, and instead
catch the faintest grind of a cart rolling across tile,
nowhere visible, the sound impossibly inside. I close the window
and retreat to the back room. Every sense tunneling toward
any movement or change in Chaddow. My phone buzzes, but
when I check, there's nothing, no call, no text, just
a blank screen, its surface wetting with condensation. At last,
in the smallest eyres, I resign myself. I gather every
list every year, speed and ladder box them and place
them at the bottom of the closet, burying the night's
memory beneath layers a fold of clothes. I take the
door's shut every movement, deliberate, locking, as if blocking the
possibility of return. As the sun finally lifts over the horizon,
I watch a thin slice of gold cut through the blinds,
striping the room with a paler, cleaner light, no noise,
but the city waking outside. I sit quietly for a
few minutes, hands press flat to the table, breathing until
the tension tends. It's quite now, too quiet except for
one sound. Metal wheels, distant but in ignorable, somewhere at
the edge of hearing, circling slowly waiting out the new day.
The sand phades, but it leaves behind a jitter in
my nerves, as scratch at the base of my skull,
that no amount of defensive rationalizing can completely erase. I
sit very still, each minute, stretching, feeling the hush press
up against the seams of the apartment. Through the window,
pre dawns that he builds itself steadily out of darkness
and exhaust, and I force myself to move to peel
the tape from the closet door, to check for messages
on my phone to do anything but let the silence win.
By mid morning, a muffled scade of notifications comes through
staff chat, erroutting in rumors. Someone posts a blurry photo
of temporary walls blocking out the far end of garden.
James's name is absent from the shift's scheduler. Pale updates
her profile picture from a different sunlit location. A new
message blinks in from an unknown number, just an automatic
welcome to the team, generated for a rebasement higher, but
there's no miss in the implication. The churn continues. I
hurry through breakfast, stomach a tangle, mind torn between a
jagged compulsion to check in se who's next, check the
lists for anomalies, in the sharp certainty that if I
turn back, even just for a quick errand to reclaim
something left behind, whatever, lingers at the store will not
let me go as easily a second time. Throughout the day,
I busy myself with the practical. I wipe all work
data from my devices, load the last batch of digital
files onto encrypted drives, double check the secure links I
sent to reporters in regulatory contacts. I write up a
simary impersonal and fact base hw lighting, the alarm in
turnover rate, missing footage, recovery of unsigned warnings, and management's
pattern of restricting conversation. I see see myself on everything,
a belt and suspendo's approach just in case. Early afternoon,
an unexpected knock rattles the door, a louder and heavier
than the one that left the pallettag My back stiffens
is across the room and peer through the lens, breath held.
It's only a UPS carrier with a padded envelope as
signature required. When I open it, I find a single
sheet corporate led ahead at the top with request for
return of all company property. It reads, including media and keys.
Failure to comply my result in legal action. I stare
at the stamp's signature, some one from the regional office.
No personal note, just the worrying angel of bureaucracy kicking
inter gear. I gather what's left vest ancient struck keys,
the backup a Dee badge I found snagged on a
locke last month. I wrapped them together in thick paper,
writing turnover completed across the tape. As I slide the
bundle into the returned envelope, I feel as though I
am sending back more than just employment paraphernalia, says if
I am dispatching proof of my participation, a brief signature
in a record that already wants to forget me. Around four,
my phone rings again. The number is local but unregistered.
For a few long seconds, I debate answering, thum hovering,
but something caution, fatigue, or refusal to let this script
itself into another anonymous warning primes my decision. I let
it ring out. Moments later, four smell chimes if be's
pressed height, I listen to a clit metallic message when
noise in the line, then a ragged breath than what
I think is a frictual clatter of wheels on concrete.
No words, no introduction, just the after taste of dread.
I sit heavily at the table, persisting the urge to
pick a path every sound to come through the audio
files way from for a hidden clue. Instead, I look
over the now empty rotation calendar on my wall, the
turnover list in their file case, the final addendum no
from Morgan. Their presence, neat and inert, does not reassure me.
Late that evening, I receive a message from One of
the remaining over night work is a cautious, in direct
check in seeking seams some affirmation that their own sense
of unease isn't misplaced. They don't reference anything at fright,
just mention that the back aisles are all quite now
too quiet, and that management cleared out the lockers earlier
than usual for remodeling. The implication is unmistakable per couch
and safe words, the kind that can't quite be held
against anyone who's screens are being monitored. Darkness comes early,
a mass, flowing over the city and leaving behind the
echo of sodium lamps. I close all the bland, Caught
in opposing compulsions of wanting to believe it finished, and
knowing deep down that the rules of containment are artificial.
I consider leaving the apartment, taking a walkore ridiculously, a
drive past the store to see if the lights are
really out the tip still up, But for once I
fight that urge. Instead, I run the shower, let the
water roar, hoping it to white. Noise will meet the
scurring thoughts. When I emerge, tal hung skin raw. There
is another Knox moler, this time barely more than a tap.
No package, no envelope. When I push open the door,
the hallway is empty. A single index card sits on
the threshold, clean handwriting ex across its surface, the diagonal.
Some doors don't stay shut. You hear them open again.
The message is unsign but the letters, I realize match
the angles of Morgan's resignation note for the first time
in days. A thin line of frustration under pin That's
the fear I want, almost needed the cycle to break,
not merely to fade or repeat. I draft a private
message to Cecilia, not the official word number, but the
one she used for emergency updates months ago. I tell
myself I'll wait only a few minutes for a reply,
But an IRO passes. Then too. Nothing returns, except for
an automatic bouncer back number no longer in service. After midnight,
restlessness crows out exhaustion. I troll forms in search of
even a whisper of similar events. Posts about haunted work places,
to staff reporting strange shadows on security calms, someone wondering
why a night less at a different store was set.
So often there is pattern in the data, but the
words never quite line up, always blurred into rumor, quickly
dismissed archafter's verabermitted by the inevitable tide of skepticism. I
fall asleep against my will, propped in the couch, only
to joeld awake at three eight by the noise of
something turning metal casters on, laminade or misticable, as if
someone is rolling a cot just outside the door. I've
bolt upright, shivering, palms clam me. The hallway beyond my
peep hole is still. Minutes pass with nothing but the
brush of air through the vent, the low crime of
traffic far beyond. But my heart keeps the count, hammering
out each law second. The next morning, dawn's pale, smothered
in rain. I check messages one from pale settling into mornings.
Hope you're safe. I reply, my own tone, clipped and bright,
pretending I have moved on. By evening wore flirts and
from the network of eckstaff, some one new leaves suddenly,
no explanation given, and the same trio of bach aisles
is closed for deep cleaning. ECHOB begins calling ex employees,
seeking informal feedback for future improvement, a clear sign that
corporate wants to control the narrative before it leaks further.
When one, a young k cher name Samir, tries to
mention turnover and lay chiff rumors the coldest connects. After
a blind apology, the churn cycles onward. The story is
being scrubbed in real time. Endless efforts been raising the residuals,
cutting out the pattern, pretending it's just business as usual.
The pressure not to return to let it all dissolve
into rumor crows stronger engineered by the very systems I
trusted to document truth. I last nearly two weeks before
a combination of dreams and dogged curiosity drives me back
to the stores. Permitter. I find myself circling the parking
lot in the gray light after closing windows up. Engine
aidling construction taps book around garden side, old shelves stapped
in angular piles. The glass door is starred with tape.
The lights inside are all off, except for a single
bank at the far end of the old inventory cage,
glowing with dulfluorescence. In that moment, a figure passes inside,
visible for a split second through gaps in the plastic sheeting.
They are hunched over cart, the shape awkward and burdened,
moving with the slow deliberateness of someone following ritual rather
than completing a task. The badge on their apron glimmers,
and my breath catch is Morgan's name. I try to
convince myself my exhaustion is playing tricks, but the image repeats,
jittering from aisle to aisle, as if the figure is
looping through in a welcome duty. I force myself to
drive on nerves, strumming with cold. I do not stop,
do not approach at home. The unease intensifies, like a
pressure in my teeth. My habit Now I check my
meal books inside sits an envelope blank except for a
hands cald thank you for listening. Don't come back after close.
The words bleed through the page, the first wrapped in gratitude.
That night, my sleep is fragile and stilled, broken by
flushes of some wheels on tire, a hiss of radio static,
for it is pitched just below hearing. At one point,
a stagger away convinced the air in my bedroom has
dropped by ten degrees, the kind of chill from an
concealed door or window. Of the static was a fluorescent fixtures.
The cat won't move from the closet, her tail flicking,
strained and alert. In the earliest hour of mourning, a
final test arrives. I open my eyes to the illusioned
no of the certainty of presents. The room is still,
but the shadows along the baseboards are oddly conjured, as
if drawn around the passage of something both heavy and unseen.
Breath held, I listen there It is again quiet but deliberate,
the rolling funk of cot wheels in the dark hallway,
moving slowly, unhurried, making no other sound. It stops aside
my door. Then silence, no knocking, not this time, just waiting, expectant.
For some long minutes, I lie there, motionless, sends his
chin to the faintest tick, but nothing follows. The invisible
pressure seems to ease, the air, slowly warming until the
ordinary noises fill to back. Only then do you I
dare move, drawing the blankets around me, settling into the
measured pulse of my own chest. When I finally sleep,
it is shallow, turbulent dreams, bubbling to the surface and
dissolving before I can remember details. On a thin slice
of morning sunlight shoving weekly through the window, I find
a message waiting on my phone and number not in
my contacts. Turnover resits, stay gone. I tried. There is
no closing, no punctuation. I pause over the screen a
full minute before deleting it. Day spill into each other,
broken only by the measured swells of background anxiety and
precisely timed deliveries. The world insistent on building normals in you.
My sense of safety remains a frayed easily torn by interruptions,
a distant metallic crattle, a broadcast of radio static, the
sound of something heavy shifting across an empty hallway. I
tried to turn toward the future coax routine from the wreckage.
Yet I keep everything boxed for now, stats deep in
the darkest corner of a closet, ignoring the small, urged
check that the tape still holds. Each door of my
apartment becomes a kind of inventory, searching for evidence of intrusion,
fresh drafts, unexplained marks. Occasionally I think Cecilia's words, don't
put your name back on the list. The advice codes
itself into habit, avoid routines, change, must schedule, never pass
through the same door twice in a single night. I
declined tent job offers especially those requiring late hours or
shift work in big buildings. The city itself blows to anonymity,
neutral faces a chorus of traffic. Every big box store
now an point in my periphery, one evening, swept up
by compulsion, a coll Morgan's number, just once, letting it
ring until the automated voice unders are scrambled off brand
fragment that offers everything except human connection. If there is
a conclusion, it comes quietly somewhere between false calm and
residual fear, a sense that whatever mechanism animated as corridors
has not been vanquished or exposed, merely rerouded waiting. Containment
is a process, not an ending. The turnover list, if
it must exist, exists for a reason, not as a
mirreort growth of failed management or urban decay. I finished
the last of my correspondents, setting the record straight as
best as the language allows, cataloging events for anyone with
the nerve or desperation to look beneath the surface. The
documents digital and physics are sealed away, not out of hope,
but out of obligation, as if preserving their details might
arm someone else for what's to come. In closing, I
resolve not to return, not even for forgotten possessions or
valedictory gestures. There is no old life to reclaim at
the edge of that parking lot, just the thick sediment
of warning and a roster of named best left and
crossed for the rest of that week. The world outside
seems exaggerated in its ordinariness. Rolling cuts on far away streets,
the hum of elevators, the shuffle of packages down the
whole with all take on a resonance account entirely dismiss
at times, a step back from the window harp racing,
certain that I'll see the faint silhuette of an old
colleague reflected in the glass. But as the days pass,
those echoes grow less frequent, fading into the background, harm
indistinguishable from city noise. One final time, as thus sharpens
the edges of the familiar, the entire secrets of events
feels as those proceeding, folding in on itself, waiting, dormant.
Just as I begin to believe the hold is loosening,
the cooling air brings a new, nearly imperceptible sound, a
soft rolling whisper, a frieze, listening wheels on tile, slow deliberate,
outside the reach of explanation. I do not open the door.
I wait, hands pressed flat to the table, promising myself
that this time, some cycles are meant to remain unbroken.