Speaker 1: Saturday is the worst, especially in December. I never see
the floor from a bevy level unless I'm standing on
the ancient step ladder, buried under piles of crushed display boxes.
Today shoulders tight. Next Dickie with sweat in a cheap
polyblant shirt. I try to clear a path from the
entrance match to returns before the backup. A check up
boils over ten registers. Six open the line, looping back
into small appliances and have round the cardboard tower of
air friars. Half my team moved twice for no reason.
There's always that low humpfulorescence music on hold ostritions bark
had guns droping why badgeitch is on mystonum. I find
myself speed walking, sidestepping stacks of cut open shipping boxes.
Four smiles at regulars, giving Ethan a hand signal to
cover the service desk. The place runs on caffeine, retail antibiotics,
and the sheer energy of complaints. It's always the angry
ones who want a manager. We track the steel online
and mansays face flush, slapping a print out on to
the glass counter at Electronics. Nervous tempt, Marika shifts her
weight behind me mouthing sorry as bag as quarters. I
scan the SLP, biting the side of my cheek. Let's
see what's going on. But before I can finish, there's
a tug on my sleeve. Alexa Marka's voice breaks. It
smells a weird sorry in the brick room. I want
to wave her off, no time, not now what kind
of weird But she's shaking. My feet are already moving, Dan,
give me five minutes, I tell the customer, though he
follows my retreat with glowering eyes in a comment about typical.
The back hallway is a relief from the sails floor
for a moment. I key into the break room. Harsh
refrigerator hum, the flicker of an old vending machine, light,
faint wreak. I caught circuit boards in something musty underneath.
It's stronger by the coat hooks. Marek stands just inside
the door, staring at the cinder block wall, shifting her
back back higher on her shoulders behind the third hook.
Something's off the pannelless lightly ajar, yellowed at the edge,
not flushed with the wall. There's a draft. Mareka mentioned
a tiny exhale of coal there into the stuffy room,
did someone mess with this? I ask? She only shrugs
nearly whispers I haven't touched it. I just noticed it
takes a box cutter to nudge the border side behind it.
Three shelf brackets have been whitched, in forming a deep
narrow cavity. My phone fastlight picks up shrink wrapped tabits
too missing from last inventory, a green label smart watch,
a mesh bag with tiny power banks, all Laurberd missing,
all supposedly written off. A slip of paper rest atop
this dash, curling up at the corners. I don't recognize
the handwriting, shop looping capitals, blueing, clossy indew nines, numbers.
My hot skips the first Leesa, then tyrone shall be
no matches from pirol, not this year, lower down another
sequence of initials in five digit coats Like times, there's
a lingering permanence, as if the names press out of
the paper. I don't REGI to the brick room, door
creaking open, not until the chill raisees hairs on my arms.
I turn the door sway on nothing and the halways empty.
Mareka is already backing away, hand shoved into her jacket.
Can I go on register Alex, Please, She keeps her
eyes far from the cavity, won't even face the stash.
You didn't put this here. My voice is too loud
in the toweled room. She shakes her head, hart mouthit.
I just need to go gone Before I can say anything.
The floor essence buzz, the cold draft sighs out as
I pressed a panel shot again, fingers tingling. I pocket
the slip of paper, wishing it hadn't. In that moment,
I feel as if something listens from inside the wall,
just beyond the concrete, holding its breath. Sunday's coffee is
always too hot. I scud my tongue on the first
anxious sip. By eight, I'm in the office, perched on
the crack full leather strawl, double checking their coming week
on the schedul or ab. I try not to think
about yesterday at the stash order list, burying it beneath
the churn of tasks. The store wakes slow, four essence
flick on him Rau's I check the phantom register, always discrepances,
always in my lap. Kyle is at the front, wrangling
the early openers, already laughing with Ruby from Housewares. Dennis seniors.
O Sate sits on the base of an empty Dolly,
hands in his pockets, silent as ever. I catch a
glimpse of Mick the overnight stocker, a ghost shifting through
the loading bait, scrolling something on a crumpled receipt. Kaylea's
emails are caustic and quick. She really hesitates, Alex, I
can't get the damn app to load all my edits,
she mutters, showing me her phone. The schedule is bloated, laggy,
full of overlapping shifts, half the names in gray italics.
Did you double up some IROs last week? She asks,
I didn't touch those. Some one's tempering. I mean it
as a joke, but it lands badly. Kayla tucks her
hair behind one ear, eyes tied, but gives me a
half smile. Dennis stays always five feet away from the
center of anything. He's old school stubborn. He tells Fridays
from every other day by whether the produce order comes
on a blue or a white van. People trust him
when they need loose advice, then talk about his strangeness.
After he leaves. Kyla and he have some running jerk
about ghosts, and sometimes I hear laught trailing from the
break room late at night. Mix another story, plee, broad shouldered,
perm scowl, he mutter and stacks and code. People say
he knows what everyone makes, who hooks up with who,
and who's more likely to drop a box on your foot.
New hives are gone within days, either transferred by mixed
rumors or left rattled by the eyres. I stare at
the staff sign in another near higher towny terry didn't
stick four days, skip the last shift. The rotating door
attempts is worse than last year, and I can't remember
more than two conversations with any of them already. My
memory skips, blurring faces and voices. It's the pressure or
the store swallowing details above the door, a sign we're
all a team, keep it clean and friendly. The vary
definition of a lie. Corporate always wants more. A tumble
of emails, distant and insistent regional's voice while it is
in three weeks, shrink needs to be under zero point
two percent, or consequences will be scathing. Any anomalies must
be surfaced immediately. I imagine the word skating echoing down
the stock from miles. I never know if they mean
lay offs or demotions, or just public shaming. The stuff
lune hums with over caffeinated bodies. Schedules get swapped, shifts
for sun the new ones joke grumbled, side eye and
poke a face retail survival, but in the back corners
voices drop. Last week, a Cockkailer and Dennis huddled over
a s mere time sheet, whispering until they spotted me,
then bursting into easy laughter. You have to keep your distance.
You have to pretend you don't notice the odd silences.
I think of the names on the slip tucked in
my pocket during every walk through. There's nothing outwardly wrong,
just enough bessin to put my nerves. A missing box
of head funds discovered, shipped and error, an extra shift
scheduled and erased. Mike's voice echoing from the freezer. Don't
fall behind, or the system will catch up to you.
Most days, routine danger is just that routine. To day,
it feels like a margin has been crossed, but I
don't know which. One Monday night, after close, I try
to get clear of paperwork. I do my own counts
at the Pilbrick's table. Two tablets, three smart portches never
signed out of inventory and now another freshole a display camera,
no one checked out and two year readers missing from
delay very manifests. Each call to the vendor is met
with polite, plausible denials. Each internal email cycles into a loop.
I print the shift logs. Someone's added an extra morning
stock shift to last week. Initials are l written in,
but we've never had an r L. The clock and
is uploaded on the app, but there's no one on
the register for that. Eye or Cayle messages me after seven,
her name blinking in blue. Why does the Thursday amslot
say dune I never signed off on it. Her phone's
green shot shows a shift. Bye Tea Grady. I check
the staff photo gridin no Tee Grady ever hired. She
comes into the office, leans against the battered desk lamp,
peels her gloves off and tosses them. Is this a
glitch or are they pushing extrayers on us again? It
doesn't look like a corporate override. I'll email Lighty, I say,
neither of us believes that'll change anything. That night, I
get a single text from Erica, just sorry, no explanation.
SENDET two seventeen a m. She doesn't come in Tuesday.
By noon, Perro confirmed she's requested to transfer to another store.
I try calling, but her voicemail is full. I wonder
what she saw or what she thought she saw back there.
Half Way through Tuesday night, I slot into the camous
system of my override. There's a five minute stretch of
statica in the east hallway cam after midnight. On the
next clip, someone's moving through the electronic section company shirt genericrest,
head turned from the lens, badge, just a white oval.
They walk with a purpose, disappear behind the gaming cases.
No one was scheduled on that side, no report, no logs,
but the motion sensor tacks them in three frames. There's
always an explanation for any one thing. Taken together, things
don't fit. By Thursday, my own order begins to spiral.
I can hear corperate in the back of my mind,
catastrophe on the tip of every reply all. Dennis is
up front, organizing a duffel bag display loosely efficiently, as
if auditioning for a stage. A hen roll, first roll,
he mutters, without looking up, leave things where you find them.
Ye never know who's keeping track. He catches my eye
and his smile is a slit, teeth too white. I
slip into the office, lock the door. I lay up
the list on the faux wood desk. Inventory locks the
mystery paper. A grid starts to take shape some of
these names. I pull up an old pyrol lockave Yes
says she quit a year ago, disappeared, Tyrone fired for time.
Carter irregularities shall be a DEMI recal her tempt during
the last Black Friday, come before December. Others are not
in any system I can access. The last third of
the page is written lighter, as if the pen was
running dry. Half the letters mudge or half formed yet
near the very bottom, and faded blue ink barely illegible.
Kalas seven minutes eleven betwil. My stomach drops. I call
her back half the clothes. She arrives, with a scarf
over her nose, red eyed, clutching her battered phone. You
see this, she says, shoving her device in my hand.
The scheduler app her version looks wrong. Half the names
are spelled shifts overlapping, some logged at three forty two
a m long eyres after closing, sometimes before the store
even opened for business. I didn't put those in look
at Friday n g r L. Even my owner spel
wrong and the app says A signed them digitally. I nod,
it's the same on my end. We cross reference with
the recent inventory discrepancies patterns emerge. Nearly every unexplained loss
happened on or just after these extra hours. Yet the
log shore receipts Sigature's products signed up by people who
don't exist. Do you think someone's spoofing the system, Kyle asks.
She perches on the edge of the tea meeting table,
picking at the corner of a sticky note. I pass
her the list. Tell me which ones you know? She
runs her finger down. Leesa, Yeah, Tyron shall be this
middle chunk. I swear there aren't even real names. But
there's your name too. I show her the faded line
at well, what does that mean? Kayla leans back, biting
her lip. Maybe it's a joke. God, I hope it's
a joke. That night, I search for more footage. I
come fore the overnight tapes. The uniform figure reappears again
and again, no time, stumps, sometimes blurred, sometimes sharply outlined.
In one footage loop, Dennis stands near the vending machine,
arms folded, chatting with someone out of frame. It's as
if the second person's face has been wiped away, nothing
but a smudge the voice, as if any earned on audio.
At the end of each exchange, Dennis turns, makes a
sign toward the brick room wall and the feet cuts.
I find Mick at five a m. Sitting in the
freezing back corridor, arms cradled in his laps, mudges of
black and coiling down both wrists. Can't sleep, he mutters,
not meeting my eyes, bad dreams, can't get the block off.
Did I write something last night? I look his skin,
the street with block letters, random men, l dots and dashes,
no meaning. Dennis wings by before opened eyes, glassy shirt,
untapped coffee from the drive through, wafting vanilla. The living
goes right, Boss, he says lightly, as if it's the
punch line to some running gag, but refuses to meet
my gaze. More nights than I want to admit, I
patrol the break room, feeling watch. There is a cold
spot by the wall, always slightly different enough to catch
your breath. I close my eyes and swear I can
hear dicking just under the cinder, blocked a quiet countendown
of something no one's owned. Are managed in Deares Friday evening.
I called Dennis, ask him to stay late. Out of
the blue. He arrives on time, posture relaxed, half grin
in place, something up. He settles into a folden chair.
Aren't crossed? There's a recent shift locked midnight to chew
ay and with your ideas a co signer. But the
other employee doesn't exist. The logs say, are rell again.
Dennis's grin never wavers, rosters always longer on paper, Alex.
Maybe the system's getting creative. He drums his fingers on
the table. Look, I say, we have to get ahead
of this. If someone's clock and go shifts made covering
theft or worse, regionals will leap me alive. He looks
suddenly tired, face SAgs, skin gray, and the stale breakroom light. Alex,
there's silence. He glances at his own reflection in the
crack wall clock. You ever feel like someone else is
using your skin during these long shifts? The wounds he's gone.
His tone is bleak, like your watching yourself work, but
only from the inside up. I try to say no,
but my mouth ris over the denial. He stands, that's
why the regulars drop. You will see. He leaves before
I get other follow up question. The office is colder
for his absence. At midnight, Kayla texts from the back corridor.
Found something. She's sweating, breeding hard, kneeling on a folding
chair below the breakrooms drop ceiling. She hands me a
batted phe maybe four or five years old, smeared with
dust tape over the mic. But the storage is full
audio memos. Listen, dozens of recordings, flips of voices, some females,
some male, clipped in slow, all reciting day schedules, inventory talas,
employee names. None of the dates all list match up
with each other, with the current system. Several echo with
low static under their voices, my handshake as I swiped
through files halfway down. Hidden among the chatter, there is
a fragment tact night roster Alex approved, I hit play
my blood runs cold a voice, my voice, same cadence,
faint accent, clip like when I'm heard on the floor
reading ten for early open or star Cape break them
seven to close, list shell be LESA R L Kayla,
Alex then almost as misied if lost, returned to wall
keep counting, keep counting, keep counting. Of the last two words,
leaped three times, growing faint with each echo. I don't
remember ever saying any of this. The sentence makes no sense.
Shall be never work nights with lesa and ourrilla is
in real We listen to half a dozen more in
niche a different voice, a different ear, but always that
closing line. If loss, return to wall, keep counting the forescent.
Bull pops overhead, We jump phones clattering, something rattles to
drop ceiling tile above us. Kle wipes her eyes. We
need to quit, just walk out order to can eat
the loss. I can't talnza. My legs won't take my weight.
A sense sharp is pain that there is nothing outside
the store, the parking lot and world only exists while
we're inside working the shift. A crash from the front
of store, A mop bucket overturned, water streaking. A crystallolim
make emerges, wide eye jacket tangled around his arms, muttering,
we're all on the list, now, all of us. It
rights itself. He barrows past, slams the crash door behind him.
His punch caught skitters to the floor. Blocks sharp by
scribbles obscuring half his name, a hollow, itchy dred titans
behind my sternam The silent settles again, but it's not silent.
Behind the break room wall steady where m knocking begins
three beats, then too, then free again, echoing like moss coat,
never quite keeping a pattern. My phone flashes with the
new email increased anomally risk see to it immediately, or
risk cascading consequences of regionals in mound. The monitor buzzes,
The air in the room feels plush, suffcating Kala stifles
a SOB, shoves the phone into my hand and backs
toward the corridor. I'm serious, Alex. If my name's next
to the knocking resumes louder. I brace myself against the
edge of the meeting table, surface sticky with old gummy
label residue, index finger tracing the name down the list
of my own kalas there, sir, The initials will ral
every one, pressed into cheap blue ink like a brand.
The store is too quiet. I feel watched. This isn't theft,
this isn't corruption in the system. This is something else,
something using us, re arranging us, even our own memories.
The air tas shout like ozenin dust. The knocking slows
saw Alen's Every shadow in the stuff lounge feels wrong.
It's not over a no, with grim certainty that it's
only just begun. In the murky glass of the vending machine,
our double reflections merge multiply for a moment. I see
not just Keyla in myself, but Denis Mick and some
one else's face shadow but gleaming lit's moving in silent
count I jerk away, keys in hand, lock jangling. Kayla whispers,
almost to herself. Something's coming off the wall. The store
feels smaller than ever. The break room is colder. We
gather our bags, phones, nervous breath. There's no plan, but
has no meat left on denial, the patterns of drawing tight.
The audit is coming, so is something else crawling in
from whatever space crew In the seams and shadows of
the store, all of us are already written down. All
of us are on the list. Kayla doesn't speak. In
the way to her car. The lot is mostly empty
except for Denis's faded civic in two delivery trucks aiding
under sodium lights that make every shadow look sunburnt. I
wait with her by habit, expecting something. She fumbles with
her keys, eyes flicking over the snowy asshole, and when
she gets in, I half expect her to drive straight
through the fence. Instead, just a wave text me when
you get home, please. She rolls away. I stand by
the door, not wanting to go back in, but I
can't leave the place in Alarmed, I thump back into
the side entrance. The familiar rattle of my key suddenly strange.
Every step is hollow. There's a slow pocket tipped over
by the compactum ex stewing, probably, but the water has
pulled into the exact shape of a footprint, as if
someone stood in the middle of the spell and vanished.
I shuffle around it, unwilling to distove the line forcibly,
telling myself it's just a trick of the light. I
reset alarms as usual, fingers automatic, not even thinking through
the password. For a moment, nothing happens, unjust Alec's store
manager final walk around. Yet, as I passed the brick room,
something old is the faint, steady scent of burnt plastic
lare over something sweet, fungle and sire sharp at the
back of the throat the panel sticks out a fraction
the paper in my pocket achs where it touches my skin.
I almost opened the wall again, but the thought absurdly
crosses my mind. If I see more names on my handwriting,
I'll lose all track of myself. Instead, I check the
door twice, lingering in the corridor making excuses, I go
to my car, and by the time I'm half way home,
the AA seems clearer, but I don't sleep, not for real.
The next morning, I wake to a staff updates emails
send at two forty one a m. The body is
blank except for a signature. The chart's system sorted in
a lawn and broken string of employee ID numbers and
initials that don't match her rasta. Some of them look
almost like words if you tilt your head. Others are
just strings k whiely our, zero, zizier, d threeness with
strange capitalization. I forward it to Kayla and impulsively Dennis.
Her reply, weird, I got it to you, but half
the names are reversed. Attached is a screenshot that isn't
identical to mine. Her list is just different enough, all
the right numbers, but the order is often three of
the idea are missing. She's underlined one Clive seven p.
You see this that's almost my name, just scrambled before
I can answer. Denis hits reply all just another migration
bog happens every update. But he see me privately a
minute later. You want to see something coming early? Bring coffee,
dun dust the others by sunrise and dragging myself into
the buildings, garding hot travel mug in hand, feeling the
cold like a slap on my cheeks. The store is silent,
except for a distant rumble from the vents. Dennis stands
waiting by the front windows, hands and pockets, looking out
into the dawn watch, he says, not turning. A walker's
shadow glides across the strip mall pavement, and then just
before sunrise, Adier Chiltrup pulls up, not hires, not scheduled.
The driver doesn't get out. Dennis turns, face gray. That
truck's been pulling up there, twice a week at dawn
for months, never unloads, never takes anything, saying, guy driving,
but you never see his face. I blink. Did you
call regional? Dennis snorts, I used to you, Now if
I do, it vanishes from the security tape watch. He
pulls his phone skulls. We look at the outside camp
for to aid. The truck isn't there? Just the empty strip.
See his hand shakes as he sits my coffee. Some
things don't want to be clocked. They only exist if
you're looking at them. But not in playback. Ye get
what I mean? I don't, not really, but I not anyway?
Why are you telling me? He looks at the gray
snow outside. YE need allaies. Don't trust everything with your
name on it, Alex, not in here, not any more.
He walks back inside, and I tell myself this is
just read. Too many night shifts stacked and not enough sleep.
But the moment he leaves a lights overhead flucker, not
in the stuttering way of a dying bulb, but once
rhythmically three then two, then three at ten sharp regional's
dials and for a routine inventory progress call. My answer
is a hollow. My planned talking points scatter. I catch
myself blanking out on names. I almost say it Trown
instead of Trevor above long gone. The person on the
other endrones on about shrinkage percentages, puluses. When a faint
ticking noise penetrates the background. I start to say something
and stop on the corner of my laptop's screen. The
cursor is dancing in putting letters. I try to stop typing,
but the string continues, spelling out K Y L A
seven P L I S T. I minimize everything, shut
the laptop, try to ignore the cold, sweat rising. I
resolve again that to night i'll drew another camera review.
I decide, in a moment when I feel particularly resolved,
to bring caline for the audit. Whatever this is going
alone seems pointless, but the morning is mercifully busy, orders,
shipment tissues, flu seas, and staff shortages. For a few hours,
the grinding retail machine overrides anything supernatural. Yet several times
I catch Dennis looking at the scheduled print house quinteing
lines wrinkling deeper around his eyes. At lunch, Mick Amble's
in cursing at his shoes, rustling a bag of chips.
He's less early than usual, more quiet. He stares at
his hands, turning them over, then opens his pomp to
show me a faint patch of black pen or looping.
Irow glass or may be just two zeros interlocked found
this when I woke up on the loading couch. He grunts,
didn't do it? Wash three times? Still there. He think
he can get sent home for falling asleep on your break.
I swear I heard some one. He breaks off. Never mind.
He slumps down at the end of the table, checks
his phone, scrolls, head jerking up every few seconds, like
he thinks some one's watching from the kitchen. I ask
you ever write those numbers in your sleep? Bad joke,
he winces, not amused. Nightmas, he mutters, always numbers in
a row, sometimes names I don't remember. Store, all empty,
flickering lights like some one's counting backwards. Creepy as hell.
Kayla shift hits at two zero. She arrives in oversized
headphones and fingerless gloves, dressed written in every small movement.
She clocks in, then pulls me aside, voice low, can
you meet to night? I think the APT just message me.
She flashes a phone notification system. Your shift begins at
seven zero opum. She is not scheduled till five, but
the at back ground shimmers strangely, as if an image
is layered underneath. She can'ts green shut. I take another
look at the printed shift logs for that night seven
minutes eleven kaylap proved by a R my initials, but
I never ended that? Where did I? We go through
schedules again, this time cross referencing with hand written time
off requests and the old battered shift change bander. Every
column is right on pyroll, but the times were written
in the margin, sometimes ick of those on the papers
up from the wall. The names rotating in different angles
and dates sold. Employees shall be tyrone the esamt a
cross time slots that don't match their tenure. Kala blows
out their shoulders, tentsed. It's like someone's running a second schedule,
overlapping IROs. She pulls out the battered phone she found. Listen.
There's another Alex memo, dates from last year before I
transferred in listener, She thumbs it on my own voice
tired broken with static Friday roster Alyx Dennis r L
Kala seven to close, if loss returned to wall a
frit and Brusum counting the words slide together, pays unsteady.
I can't remember ever recording something like that, not even
as managerial filler. Kela claps the phone shot breeding fast.
There's a brassy hush in the break room. Everyone gone
for the ire, she whispers. If they're running a phantom shift,
what happens if all the names on the wall match
the staff inside? The question sits between us too large.
That night, before lights out, the schedules printed again, this
time with the whole row of one call, alternates everyone
a name from the mystery less r L and hughes
lesa a T Grady. The lines are lighter gray, almost
invisible unless you squint. But when Kayla logs in from
her own device, hath the slot's flip over now shall
be entire on a scheduled donhouse green not mine. In
the camera playback for midnight, just as Dennis warned to
shape moves through electronics, they pause, turned toward the lens,
face perfectly widded up by a flicker of tape static.
The hand lifts a single clip or held high pointed
at the break room wall. Afterward, the time stump glitches,
rolling back four minutes, then lurching forward again. I freeze
in the clip, muzzle stiff. A compressing sense presses inside
my chest. Not panic, more like a kind of suspended
frozen dread. A system error repeating is written. There's no
option left. I text Kayla and Dennis for a late
night review. The air is tense enough to share. They
show up together, each bringing grease, stain, take up bags,
nervous hunger. We cluster in the brick room door locked,
the cheek, clock ticking. Dennis sitsdale coffee, rolls a quarter
over his knuckles, stares at the patch tile for truth told.
He murmurs, I've been here longer than my memories. Sometimes
I look at a staff photo wall and swear half
those faces aren't just gone there, erased like the walls,
using new faces to fill in the gaps. Kayla, trembling
a little, laughs dryly. I knew this job would eat
me alive, but I thought that was just retail metaphor.
She runs her hands back through tangled hair. You ever
feel at Alex like you are not really yourself? On
the late shifts, I get this float like im behind glass.
Are the names drift in? Sometimes I almost answer to them?
I almost answer, but Dennis cuts in, voice laden. Don't answer. Ever.
If something calls a name you've never used, don't turn
around a pause. Katya tips her phone, showing her notification again.
Your shift begins at seven zero upum confirm or lose eligibility.
The message pulses even after she clears it. The silence
in the break room denser than the hum of the refrigerator,
of the buzz of bad wiring. Dennis glances at the
cinder block wall. We all hear the knocking right. No
one answers. I can't my limbs feel electrically numb. Suddenly
the steady not comes again. Three paws, two paws three.
It's wrong, somehow purposefully off. Dennis doesn't move, face ashen.
Kayla hunches forward, covering her ears. Something scuttles overhead. The
ceiling tall SAgs for a second, then writes itself like
an animal calling above. I freeze hann halfway to my keys.
Cayla finally stands, I'm not doing this any more, Alex.
If you want to lose yourself, fine, but I'm going home.
But she doesn't make it far. The panel by the
coat hooks by rate is at the vent or something else,
and a slip of paper inches out, unfolded as if
by invisible fingers. Kayla shrieks, jumps back. Dennis scrambles away
to the tough Man act cracked the paper lands flat
and new list with four names, this time at the
top Alex, Kayla, Dennis, rl Al turn at seven, penclose approved.
All three of us stare. The time is now, Dennis says,
barely audible. It's not just the lists, its Russers calls
us in bit by bit into whatever's on the other
side of that wall. The knock resumes louder, paired with
a cold wind that seems sus from the seam. The
sound of voices close, muffled, not quite our own, chanting
numbers backwards. Temperature drops so fast my breath fogs the
glass of the vending machine for a beat. Reality glitches.
The reflected break room is packed twelve bars in uniform
and then matching the faces I know, all moving in
a leaped, silent ballet of stalking, logging in, clocking out,
endlessly repeating, heads bowed, some with faces blurred, others are
right shadowed. Then the vision is gone. Only myself Kayla
Dennis left. Something presses from the inside of my skull.
I squeeze my hands, fighting to keep the names my own, Kayla's.
Dennis is anchored, refusing the ouch dancer and endless roll
call that threatens to tumble from my tongue. Dennis moves
toward the door, but the handle won't turn. He yanks harder.
It's locked, Alex, it's locked. We're not supposed to A
burst lace cut absolute blackness save for a pocket of
phone glow. The air vibrates from the panel. Our shape
presses outline of a hand, fingers too long, nails missing,
tracing the seam. Kayla cries out in the pallid light
of her phone. Her face flickers between her own and
something older, sadder, hollow, cheeked. I see myself in hers
green reflection, hammered, colorless, fading out for a moment, Denis
is just a pool of gray, not quite resolved. The
shape behind the wall knocks again, slower, one two, one, two, one,
until the rhythm twists. A voice hissing through the vent whispers,
keep counting, keep counting, add your name. Kayla grabs me
by the sleeve, voice steady despite the trembling. We have
to break the cycle, unplug everything, wipe the lists. My
own thinking is blunted, clawed with static, but I follow her,
snapping on the main breaker, severing the computer's power strip.
The back up generator's daughters. But the lights do not return.
The only changes the sudden course of static from every
unplugged device, snatches of half hood schedules the echo of
my own voice, and end the sloop cut off mid
entants Denis wild eyed, slants his palm on the break
room wall. Stop writing us down, He yewls there, shakes.
The panel, rattles and pops, nudging open just enough for
me to glimpse the crossbis inside and possibly deep, thinly
lit by the same flickering fluorescence as our own brake room,
but running backward into dark. The new slip of paper
launches itself from the void, hitting my chest and sliding down.
I refuse to read it. Not even a scale picks
it up, folds it, crams it in her pocket. We
gather our coats by and spoken agreement. Dennis, shaking whispers,
if you stay past close, you'll lose your place. Schedule
keeps you and off, schedule lets you out. But if
there's no schedule, there's nothing to return you. The cock ticks,
then glutches, skipping forward three hours. It's suddenly two four
a m. The knocking has stopped the screen's reboot. Dennis
is already half way out the emergency door, not bothering
with alarms. Kayla pauses her phone, blinking. The shift app
now reads flatly. Next Shift Alex seven minutes eleventh at weel.
She pushes it into my hand, whispering, don't open the
wall again. Promise me if you see your name onalist
you never touched. Do not answer. They leave. I stand
in the empty break room, Aloham returning, wondering his hand
just for up my future on near the side of
the cinder block. My keys are damp with sweat. No
one explains. The extra ire is logged on pay All.
The next morning, the list on my phone in Kayler's
finally match, but half the shifts are ghosted out, gray
on black marked retired Keyla arrives two hours late, eyes red,
and spends her break starring at path rosters cross checking
every line for her name. Dennis, meanwhile doesn't show. I
can't get him on the phone. His mail box is full,
and the only message I get is a single garble
for smail, a half second of an ittllic liang and
what might be Keep counting. That afternoon, the district officers
emails to remind all staff reviewing overnight shift compliance is
critical in the run up to ordit. The notice signed
HR system's order, followed by a new strain of ID
all familiar. At mine Kala's a half dozen past employee
cucle from the mystery lists. The building feels crowded with absences,
even during busy hours. I sense the pressure of unseen
bodies jostling for space in the margins of the scheduler,
and a crawl up of the drop ceiling behind the
flickering lights and polyscope lunch table. Kayla barely makes eye
conduct You get then anything from Dennis? I shake my head.
She purses her lips, and in an impulsive moment, pulls
me aside, whispers to night. She rolls up her sleeve,
revealing a faint blue ink name just above her elbow.
Kill it while seven P minutes eleven P. It's written
in my script, but I never use that pen. I
woke up with it, she says, voice, tiny wash, but
it won't come off if I see another shift. I'm leaving.
I don't care if I never work again. We both laugh,
brittle and small, as if a light a flame could
bone us out from the inside. By four, I start
to experience strange gaps. I forget an entire conversation with
Ruby from Housewares, realize my schedule is off by two days,
and find myself for filling the sanitizer dispenser with no
memory of picking it up. I pass the security mirror
and catch for a fragment my own reflection reaching for
me before my arm moves the lock up. That evening,
I do everything twice, triple checkal ons, count patty, cash,
verify the locked inventory. Yet I still miss things. A
box of display headphones, another e reader gone, no logs,
no camera footage. A new slip of paper waits by
the register, folded neat this time with just three names, Alex,
Kayla orrel seven to close, return to wool, I flick
it away before reading more. Crumpele it, pitch it deep
in the trash. The ticking resumes softer, more patient, as
if the store is weeding me out back outside, street
lights buzzing overhead, a fumble for my car in the
half I slot. Every reflection in the glass door shows
too many figures, un fading as I watch some half
familiar in their green vests, heads bent to registers, arms
moving repeating the endless choreography. Kle is compacted, rolls by
window cracked. I catch her eye. She mouths, quit to night.
I want to say yes, but the word sticks behind me.
The break room door clicks, light glows briefly, then jut.
The others leave. The store is enter than at any
look up before. Every cough of the old etjack overhead
an interruption, I feel in my jaw. I set the alarms.
Each beep is sharper. The smell by the koat hook's lingers,
that hot sweat rot like wires and meldew. I'm supposed
to be home. I should go. Routine is the only
shield the keys and my palm. As I cross the threshold,
the steel side doorschill doesn't wake me up, doesn't snap
me out. My mind won't stop replaying the numbers and
the way Kyle's name and my own crawled up the page.
The parking lot is a black sea, dotted with yellow
puddles under the sodium lamps. Kyle A's compact has disappeared.
Denis's civic too. Mine sits alone, dusted with eyes, the
interior fogged with my own breath. My hands fumble the
ignition my knuckles white. I watch the stillness, waiting for
something to shut her back to life. Nothing moves except
a grocery bag blowing across the empty row of carts.
My phone buzzes system push alout a night entry logged
seven DREAP Manager Alexander ramsay, I gripped the steering wheel already,
Sure I haven't clocked myself in the app won't let
me sign at No matter how I swipe over start,
my shift remains open. Great out timers only as sire's
stretching across the weak Sunday comes and goes. I watched
the sunrise from the wrong side of sleep, replaing the
echo of Kayla's voice. The scheduler app on my phone
won't update despite the call under a date. My next
shift reads is current. I took Kayla no reply. I
leave a voicemail for Dennis and get a fast, busy tone.
The only thing in my inbooks is another autogenerated a
charr email schedule autopropagation in progress. All team leads to
confirm assigned blocks by end of business. If I listen,
I hear the ticking in my ears, sometimes loud enough
to fool my heart beat. I show up Monday light.
Nothing's changed. The morning is great, airshop with thought salt.
I walk in on the skeleton crew, nobody joking, nobody
even giving the perfunctory has a going Ruby avoids my eyes.
Mac hasn't been in since Friday, but he's on the
schedule in half. The shift's posted as if his body
could be anywhere at once. Keila is nowhere to be seen.
Her location in their perpetually active on break. Both phone
and store system refuse any attempt to swapper or delete it.
The back corridor smells worse over the industrial soap. Theres
the ropey edge of mole, thinner than before but unmistakable.
The panel by the coats is flush, but the seams
look firstly scored. I look for Kayla all morning. Her
phone rings, no answer, but there is a message on
my desk, a slip of registerer tape folded twice with
the note and clip block capitals. Don't stay late, don't
answer new names. It isn't her handwriting. Auditor is coming
to day Regional said Monday and the district a char
rap is due to follow, but nobody shows up by
nine nor ten nornon phones, rain radors go wrong. Dennis,
his replacement, a skinny older man called Gregg, asks if
I have any advice on ghost time punches are joking,
but not quite, he says, does the clock run this
slow every December in a way that prickles my neck?
By two p m? I feel shaker? Did I have lunch?
I check receipts, thereto from the same register, same total,
two minutes apart, need assigned by staff. I know the
office poses with nervous energy. Ruby snaps at me from
misplacing signage, thin back bittals. I check the brake groom empty.
Everyone seems allergic to the space. The wall panel's edge
is outlined by reddish black, like dust or burnt canvas.
I press my hand near it. It's coal, but the
draft all my palm was warm. For the first time,
an oca gentle as if asking permission. They then two,
then three. The phone rings. I answer it without looking
a color id, expecting regional, but there's only breathing on
the other side, slow and close, then a muted scraping
sound and hang up. I call Cale again. Her voicemail
is hers, but the clip is old. Her voice hollow
and tight, as if left when she was some one else.
Four p m. The day staff begin clocking out. The
night team on the schedule is five people, but only
three show up. Gregg, a nervous knew how I called
abdey Ane. Kayle's name sits at the top of the
registered tape scheduled pending confirmation. I try to overwrite, but
it snaps back every time. Gregg watches the clock. You
want me to shed it early at Alex's place, gives
me the creeps. I nod. Just make sure the deliver
is a squared don't go into the break room. He
gives a sharp look. Heard you had a kid quit
last week. Said something was living in the walls. I
can't tell if it's a test or if he knows.
I say nothing. Busy myself with the left of her
valley signage from bla Black Friday. My hand shake less
when I don't pause. The break room is empty when
I pass, only it doesn't feel empty. The shadows are
blue black breaking from the overhead as if the light
is chewed through. The wall is bare, no panel yet,
I swear. I hear the rustle of paper inside. I
hold my badge breeding so thin, I almost faint. The
ticking comes larder now and less. Patient escalation brings a pressure,
hard and unrelenting on return calls, schedules that ride themselves
every hour, my own routine thickening with repetition. Impossible slips
of paper appear wherever I go by the copy machine
tucked into the stockroom rack take beneath the manager offers
mauser pad. Each one bears fragments of name colst Is,
old ones, some I half remember, and some that don't
belong anywhere except here, written in the spidery print, I've
grown to dread. Tuesday Corporate finally reaches me. Orditor is
delayed by unforeseen routing. Hold all records ready and the
abnormal shrink Great warrants escalation purrs so p thirty three
minutes five. The email includes a new list of staff,
half unrecognizable, Lorealty Grady, the Essa, Shelby, Kailer Alt. I
snatch my phone and check the camera feed to seven PUM.
The sales floor is nearly deserted. At gregg Somewhere near
appliance is outer as re stocking headphones in the staff
Forgio griared. Half the face is shimmer, their badges flickering
between two or three names, all half matching the walls lists.
I text Kayla. The message is delivered, read, then a
reply stayed by the wall. Don't let them lock you out,
coming soon. The knock at the break room starts again.
It's slower now, farther apart, as if for devas behind
a walls, conserving energy or anticipating entry. I hear my
name whispered from somewhere behind the vending machine, caught on
the edge of the compressor's hum. I try to leave.
The register, won't balance. The system claims I took out
two deposits at eight seventeen bum, but I've been in
the office in six Receipts pile up on the keyboard,
some for legitimate sales, others with no record in the
product logs. The clock lurches forward. I stare at my
own photo on the wall. Faintos of static around edges,
and nine of them. Gregg is gone. No goodbye, no
clock out. I check the parking lot. No sign of
his truck. The app says Gregg Transfer completed. Avde emerges, pale, fidgeting,
asking if he can cover register just for a few minutes.
I say yes, then lose track of him Entirely. I'm alone.
The store feels hollow and anchored. I do my rounds
electronics home seasonal, watching for any one out of place.
What does that move on their own? Nothing but every
mirror I catch flickers for heartbeat, shells fill and empty,
familiar shapes echoing the edges of uniforms I recollect but
don't own. The back hallway stretches seems longer as I
walk it. At the break room, just before too, I
see Kila, at least someone with her walk her old shoes,
hands shoved and pockets, hair frayed. She hacks her chin
as she steps inside. She doesn't say hello, but just
they're running doubles now schedules in parallel. Sometimes I wake
up and I'm already clocked in for the week. Sometimes
I don't even open my eyes, and my hands are
signing in. Her voice is hoarse, too hollow. We need
to shut it down, I murmur. Her eyes flick over
my shoulder. They won't let us. The wall's too full.
We're on the list, Alex. We can't erase ourslves. I
want to tell her about the schedules. The way my
own memory snags and slips. I want to ask her
how to pull out, to disappear, to be let go
by forces the hard corporate aren't even human. Instead, I
man inch. If we don't go in, what happens? She shrugs.
Then it pulls some one else. I watch it with Denis.
If you remember him right the way she says it,
I can't be sure I recall him at all. The
face is fluid in my mind, pixelated and relicting, the
glimmer of a staff photo that may be never hung.
She presses a fallen into my hand, not her regular one,
the battered, anonymous brick from before. Charge this at night.
Listen sometimes you'll hear yourself in the loop before it
finds you for good. Don't answer any new names. If
you hear your own, hang up. If you see your writing,
don't read it out loud. She turns for the door. Wait,
I grab her arm. Does it want something? Is it
just feeding off the routine? The words come out, thick, uncertain.
She freezes ice, glittering with that edge of tears or fury.
It wants a roster that never ends. It wants everything
always open, always covered. They want all the names to fit.
She twist free. Then just before she's gone, night shifts
coming up. Don't let them schedule both of you at once.
Then she's gone too quick, swallowed up by the dark hall.
The next eyro is a blur. I sit alone at
the manager's desk, with the old phone charging, clicking through
emails that won't clear, schedule lines that beset themselves. The
clock ticks and jumbe erratic beats. The wall by the
coach remains flush, but something pulses beneath it alone em
I count the minutes, watch the second hand Paul's skip
roll backwards. I try to write notes, remind us, but
every attempt comes out in a loop. Signatures form in
my own name on top of itself, until the ink
bleeds a ring at the office phone, no collar, I
d but the voice that hiss out is unmistakable mine,
except drawn out, flat, choking on static roster open, seven
to close, if loss, return to wall, if written, resume counting.
The phone drops my teeth ache. I almost master the thing,
but the list repeats from the speaker until I pull
the plug at close. The alarms long after midnight, I
find a slip under the doornose ender just names Alex
or el Kayla at well below it a scrawled question
count again. I try not to hyperventilate, but Night is
breeding down deep. For every crevis in the cinder blocks,
I barely make it home, sleepy, shallow, staggered numbers. The
schedules appeared behind my alleys. I recite my own name
backwards in hope of breaking the chain. In the shower,
blueing trickles from my left us. Even though a scrub
Alex seven pet close spirals beneath the skin, as of
press from inside, no amount of soap takes the riding away.
Back at the store, new damage, A lock in the
break room looks snapped panel push wide open. Nothing has
been physically stolen, if anything, more inventory than ever appears
on the shelves, as though product left is being quietly
replaced by hands that know the codes better than any
one living. HR emails congratulate me on my rapid correction
of loss. New stocklests show items never previously cataloged identical,
but off by a single number. Every barkerd not quite
matching ABDE is gone transferred in the system. No one replaced.
The night roster now reads only two names, mine and Kala's,
but with the shadow Darrell still at the bottom. Great
but stubborn. Every time I delete that block, it returns denial.
Is no room, the hallways cold. I force myself to
face the panel at seven while up almost on the
dots are cold. Wind bursts and the wall shutters. The
panel swings back. This time does no mistaking. The space
of crawl space narrower than any plausible gap, yet swallowing
sun and light. The scent of mildew electronics and faint,
meaty copper floods out in sight. The crawl space impossibly
stretches in each direction, past a cluster of shrink wrapped
tablets and tethered power banks. The walls are papered with
old time cards, hand written notes, fragments of uniforms pinned
up at odd angles. Some are ancient, faded and torn.
Others look impossibly crisp. Names. I don't remember it except
my own Alex, r L, Kala, Dinis, then Shelby, terrun Leessa,
circling in endless order. I breach Alloh forgetting the weight
of my body. As I pull myself into the space,
the light is wrong. Edges blows ring seeming too low
behind me, footstep scrape, KLESSI wet looms PANICI sing her voice,
don't go too far. If you see yourself, don't answer.
I reach a trembling hand back, and she grabs my wrists,
reluctant but real. We crawl deeper. The air is muggy,
The rows of lists become denser, stacked, looped, names have
been written, stamped, crossed were written, Everything doubled and tripled
until paper crumbles under our hands. Some enters echo from
last years, some from shift patterns that couldn't ever have overlapped.
But there they are all joined, And at the end
of the passage there stands a mirrored alcove, just enough
space to kneel against the warped silver. Is a figure,
uniform shop as eyes, but flickering, a multi face presence
in its chest is in not of all name badges,
every one occluded by shadow, their letters, jumpy, bleeding running
at the corners. The figure watches, but says nothing. At first.
The air press is hard, like being under water. Kayla
tries to pull back the merrid oc of fogs and
in flashes I seed us but warped working registers together
stocking shells and high speed pe blair re setting the ladders,
repeating gestures as if by a s grip written at iamziko.
The figure steps forward, its phase phases between my own
kalas and others. We must have known, lips moving in
a polyphonic echo, shapes of ruined vowels. Roster must be full,
lis must be kept. The work is always yours. Its
hand flicks a duplicate of my own offering as a
slip of paper, trembling with fresh inco names the latest schedule,
reading Alex Kayla r l Night at twelve, It continues,
you may forget, but not scape. Ye may go, but
you'll be returned. No name unwritten, no shift, un covered,
identities rostered, time repeats. Kyla's knees give, she crouches paralyzed.
I feel the tug in my own mind, the desire
to surrender, to slip away, to let the routine drawn out,
whatever self remains. I stammer, It's not thus, not just us.
My voice is little more than a crack whisper. The
figure spreads it hands. You are the present others of
the memory, All are the lists in the flicker of
its eyes. I see images. Denis pacing a void, counting
inventory over and over, never leaving, mix, shuffling the seats
for ghosts. The yess at the register lips, moving in silent,
endless script. Kela too, her face blank, reciting schedules. She
doesn't remember, making my own body reflected, infinite clocking in
forever choose, the figure says, remember and remain or join
the roster. One's written, never unwritten. The alko fills with
impossible reflections, faces, motions, versions of me, all stuck in
some maternal recursive inventory. My grip tightens on Kayla's hand.
We're leaving, I say, meaning it or not. The warmth
of her hands dead is me. Kela closes her eyes.
Don't answer. Don't let them copy your name again. Behind us,
the passage begins collapse in, folding over with a rush
of cold air, sucking backwards like a receding tide. The
figure leans in. His voice is overlapping. You will come back.
The shift always returns. The list is never gone. I
wrench myself backwards, dragging Kaillo with me. The tunnel turns off,
as if is folding clothes behind My crawling is desperate
colough tearing on my pants, hands scraped and raw. We
spill out into the break room, gasping for air. The
panel sliming, shot with explosive force. For a second, I
clutch Kila's arm as if we're both drowning. She coughs,
hand shaking, wiping dust and holding from her skin. Above
The ceiling tiles are quiet, the air smells of ancient soap,
and a panel is flosh seamless, pre seen. The crawl's
face already raised. We stagger into the corridor. The lights
are back, steady, harsh and sippic. My chest heaves like
evern a mile. Kayla finds her phone. The shift up
is blank, except for a new blockingecks alyx seven to
close or twelve. My own device buzzes conformation alout, pinging
for silent halls. Night entry confirmed, badge one name Alex
active roster behind me. Something slipped on my sure collar
a faded name tag scuff but still mine. It reads
simply Alex KnightShift pressed inside the plastic is a faint
backward orrel We eggit the break room on legs like paper,
silent but for our breath and the faint hum of
a compressor Kayla's faces pinched, tears not quite forming the
building hums of the patient, endless energy. In the office,
the main computer pings. The inventory has zero discrepancies. Lost
levels are flawless, shrinkitch has reversed more stock than accounted
for new shipments, lowbered as recent hires. The system is satisfied.
The front doors and lock for the auditor without me
touching the key. He's young, crisp, trimmed blazer, too tight.
He scans the aisles, nods at the numbers, clicks through locks.
You really brought things under control, he says. Best in
district retention, immaculate. He eyes the shift locks, no ghost entries,
every column tight. Looks like he worked overtime. Alex Keela
doesn't linger. She corners me before walking out, her resignation
in hand, backpack over her shoulder, eyes trained on the
black midday light through the glass. I'm out, Alex for good.
You should be two, she murmurs. Just don't be here alone.
Don't let them schedule you. It's never just you. I
won't beg her not to go. Fred fills me heavier
than gilt, thicker than exhaustion. I pick up the staff phone,
consider pretending nothing happened, but I can. Dennis never reappears
on staff locks. His picture is gone from the wall,
no empty space where it hung, just another nearer name
in his place. H R. New High paperwork arrives that afternoon,
clean and digital, the registerless cycle, names changing by the day,
the week, but the rhythm remains. Always an Alex near
the top, always in our rail, underneath gray, always that
will around the edges, ghostly margins, kale As block continues
to appear, pending approval. Once in the reflection of the
break room vending glass, I catch a fleeting shade at
my back, just a shadow, uniformed badge glowing faintly. I
turn and it's gone. Holiday seals explode, The isles fill
with people, none of them familiar. The mills bend, vanish,
faces mudged even as they hand back receipts. Some days
I feel I'm running the forward, hands not quite my own,
my voice twitching and unfamiliar throats giving instructions I haven't
yet thought to say. Slips of register tape show up
in my jacket, my car, under my pillow at home,
always lists, always the same round of names each time.
Alex night or alalt. Some lists are dated in the future,
some never. The night after Kale quits, I can't leave
on time. The red sister won't close. The schedule were
sets emails pink, non stop peach, with no action required.
I struggle with the app until half past midnight. Finally, alone,
I shut down the lights on the wall behind a panel,
I hear again the gentle patientnock three, then two, then three,
slower with ownership. The wall never buckles, but the tick
remains steady, as if waiting for my confirmation. I moved
down the back hallway, the distance now endless, every step
met with my own echo. The schedule on my phone
updates night, no time in slash out my block are
ready fill for weeks out. I swipe, trying again to
raise it, but the entry won't budge. Lights off. I
passed the break room. I pause again. Right at the
reflective window of the vending machine. In the black glass,
I see them rows of uniforms behind me, faces obscured
by shadow. All had slightly inclined, as if keeping their count.
Among them, two vases are clearer, Dennis's lean jaw, Kayles's
tired eyes, neither meeting line. Their mouths move altogether. We're
all on the list. Now I turn. The whole way
behind is empty, nothing but the faint hum of the building.
The glass holds the crowd half a second longer before
the reflection falls away. My own face remains fixed and silent,
badge gleaming Alex's naetwoel. I breathed once slow, certain I
am alone again. I breathe once slow, certain I am
alone again. Except the lights in the corridor don't quite
die when I kill them. The break room door at
that ugly batter cut out with its gouged out handle
and started pained, has a scrap of yellow tape stuck
above the gem, my own handwriting block letters angry and
rush alecks arel at wool. It didn't exist when I
started my final check. I pick it off, sticky recidy
left behind and stuff it into my pocket. My phone
glows night order to complete. Jeff remains open. The building
has that inhale, muffled and huge, like a massive animal,
waiting for me to check the lost box to sign
the last schedule away. Even the buzz from the old
vending machine is gone, replaced by something almost hushed, the
hum of a server farm or a storm underground. I
try to leave once more, pass security, fumble the keys.
The key holereses just half a turn, shy of locking,
as if my own wrist isn't strong enough. A low knock,
too light to be any real, comes again from the
break room wall, no rhythm, just a heartbeat. My shoes
squeak as I crossed to the office. The plastic name
tag inside my show still itches in the staff in
bux another system message night personnel confirm roster by entry.
The schedule reloads itself, names populating and depopulating in jerky waves.
O old half lived on the print up above the
time clock. There's a new list at the top. Alex
knitch he relactive underneath four or five names blurred by
dot matrix errors, holes instead of letters, like omissions. It
occurs to me how easy surrender would be. I could
stay and let the weak roll into itself, Let time
eat the scraps of what's left. But every member kills
grew aprile alive, resistant the way she said, don't answer
new names, don't let them schedule both of you at
once outside sleet slands down at the parking lot, engraving
lines on already ruin pavement. The stower's emergency floodlike kicks
on a stuttering blue white, making columns of mis through
the settling ice. I slipped my badge, scanned the door.
The system bings for a second. The glas goes block,
a hint of my own dock in reflection in uniform,
moutha moving, but the eyes watching. As I head from
my car, the sensation builds, the sense of the door
behind me almost closing, almost locking me in again, but
not quite. Inside the car, radio dead, heat is low.
The only sound is the frantic thumb of my own pulse.
My phone vibrates with a single push alert shift ended,
roster retained, confirm for future schedule. I don't. Instead, I
throw the phone in the glove box and drive. It's
nearly three in the morning when I park in my
driveway engines stuttering relief only partial. The sky is black,
but something about the clouds looks like there echoing the
lights from the store pail grated always on. For two days,
I ignore every work notification. My own name kens in
the apt's home page. It sits gray and unresolved, with
active no time outlooping underneath human resources calls just once.
When I answer, all I get is the deadline, the
sound of distant paging tones, a suffrustation. Please confirm schedule,
Please confirm schedule. I sit on the edge of my bed,
flant by receipts and coffee cups, unable to sleep for
more than an hour at a stretch. Once I try
to text Kayla, a blank reply bounces back instantly from
some anonymous number. My phone number not register. The message
reads though it's her voice on voicemail, but flattened, drained
food has no flavor. My hands are grainy, always tinged
with residue from paper, ink, and what I think is
dust from the cinder block walls. The third night, the
store itself calls my landline. A pause, static, then a
slow chorus not voices not quite like a synthesized version
of staff Callot's pipe for a juke books. The message
store opening night, roster and complete, please present for completion.
When I check my email in desperation, my inbox is
flooded with system generated forms schedule adjustment, night, chef, roster review.
Every time I try to unsubscribe, another email replaces it.
A last forty eight hours before the summons in my
veins outweighs my dread. That evening, I pull on my
battered uniform badge, cold and heavy. I drive the eyes
at streets back to the store. Something drags me forward,
not just memory or worry, something rude, deeper, my own
level compulsion engineered by a name on a list. I
park as far from the overhead lights as I can,
leaving my phone in ignition engine munning. It doesn't matter.
As soon as I step on to the painted line
dividing the lop, another alert pops upon my wrist to
watch I don't remember putting on night Alex at will
time ongoing at the side door. My badge unlocks the reader.
The panel blinks green in sight. The fourorescent lights are
already stuttering in a familiar insistent sequence three two three.
The store is silent except for the soft click of
the heat pump. The corridor to the brick room is longer,
more labyrinthine that by exit signs that flicker in anemic cycles.
No staff, not single soul, but their registers are open,
the screens logged into Dumay accounts. The displays are immaculate,
over stalked, like a ground opening that never drew a crowd.
A faint shuffle draws my attention. I move, not knowing
if I am drawn forward by choice or instruction. In
the brick room, the panel above the coat stands open again,
a wind spilling out, chilly and damp, scented with ozone
and inc. Inside the wall, the space breeds. I stepped
just onto the threshold, not crawling by crouch. Left hand
on badge, right on the bat of thorn. Kala handed
back the endless shift to go it hums of charge screened,
all but alive. The crawl spaces dim, but blows of
movement shadow the walls. Thin chalk marks of old names,
some slashed out, some doubled, some nearly erase, but coming
back under the touch of an invisible pen. There's the
list again, infinite recurse of my name, r L Kyla's,
Dennis smeared and half lost. Others I don't want to remember,
Others I never met, but whose schedule patterns I somehow
know by heart. A rhythm pulses under my feet, rising bonnward.
I hear counting quite a recursive echo of the same numbers.
I grew to fear, seven, to close, nine, to clothes
a twill, A twill always open. A figure awaiting the
merrod alco, just as before, every facet of its face
and echo of staff reel and imagined. The badge on
its chest flickers, data and pixelated clutch's alex r l
Kyla cholby Mick Lisa, all ghosting one after another. I
blinked for a second. It is just my own badge again,
resolute and chilling. This time the figure looks tight, or
as tired as a static image can look, his lips moved,
but the sound arrives, tangled to farrag of tones, age, gender, time,
all ben into something barely human. You came. The shift
must not end, it says, its hand sharpening, stain stretches out,
palm up roster continues. Thy identity is recycled. What must
go on to rest is to be replaced. I nearly
collapse under the weight, the ache burning in my knees,
a sensation like grinding teeth. What happens? My voice cracks?
If I refuse the figure's head, bows splitting fractionally into three,
then six, then back to one, then another will answer.
The list is never empty, onlyredden your lines echo backward
absence is a shadow schedule. You walk. The foreign ghost
shifts unremembered, but never out of rotation. I swallow, feel
the badge pressed my collar bone, cold and absolute kill.
Steps close behind me, silent. I don't know how she's here.
Maybe I knew the second I saw the coral open up.
Maybe she never left, or maybe part of me reeled
her in by row a name attached to mine, and
end this block print. She touches my shoulder. Don't let
it do both, don't let it double you the other me.
The figure grows more insistent, join, forget, repeat or remain
and remember and lose all shape. No one not on
the list. My knees buckle, half inside the shadow, half outside.
Time watched the clustrophobic sense of a hundred of our
lapping eyos, every closing shift of staggered through, eating at
my heels. I listen, hold on to the one thing
I've managed to call back. My name is mine, not theirs,
not the rosters. I won't let it, I say. Or
maybe it's Kayla or grip burning on my sleeve. We
don't answer, We don't cover both shifts, no new names,
no doubling. The figure snaps unreceds, the mirrored walls folding
in on themselves, the lists and cause culling up, crumbling
at the corners. The crowls based contracts cold when snapping
me back through the panel and out into the bare,
humming brick room. Immediate fall out hits with a hard slap.
The panel won't budge, phoned out, badge, rigid as a stone.
The store lights up like morning, harsh and empty. I'm
sprawled on the scufflinoleum, Kayla gasping beside me, both of us,
scraped and bruised, hands marked, buying that now runs in
tear shaped rivulets. I help her up on uncertain feet.
She breathes ragged. We did it, she mutters, but doesn't
sound sure. Behind us, the register pings an automatic system update.
Nothing more. I crossed the floor to check. No schedule enters,
no lists, no alternate names, Harold clean, chifts normal, No more.
It will just blocks and gray, waiting for assignment. We
leave the store together, lights off, a larm set. The
shift is done for tonight, maybe for longer. That night
I sleep. I don't dream, at least, not of the store,
not of lists, names or shifting faces. Instead, just a
hush of absence. Morning closest to normal. My phone only
pings once a single calendar event required confirm or decline assignment.
I let the invitation expire. There's relief, but it's not perfect.
Sometimes I still catch myself at the kitchen table, reciting
names under my breath, just on the edge of consciousness.
Sometimes the receipt printer at the market jams, and I
feel my blood and cold. But most days I move through.
I was not shadowed by routine ghosts at the edge
of sleep. Sometimes I hear counting, faint, distantly regular to
sound like a rouster being checked, but only as an
I could behind familiar silence. When I wake to my
own name, it's just me that answers. I don't check
the clock, I don't look out, and the wall is
closed for now