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“Faces Under The Wick”

The following is a written letter sent to the Author. The case requires further examination and verification.

Hey Author,

        I work in a gas station as a cashier during the infamous graveyard shift. I promptly clock-in around nine PM for my shift to relieve the afternoon shift worker, right after finishing my evening classes. It’s not ideal work hours for the rest of my life but currently I’m a student at a two-year community college. It’s perfect for having plenty of down time while getting paid so I can read through my notes and do some homework. It’s almost as if it’s my library but instead of other students, I get the occasional police officer trying to stay awake, late-night partiers grabbing a late night snack on their way home and only the occasional slight-psychopath who brings my finger to the wooden handle of the shotgun under the counter. Just in case.

        I’ve often seen things that are off or downright weird but I normally chalk it up to the late night hours that I work and my body’s desire to be asleep. Mostly, the more bizarre things that I’ve seen are just normal people on the other side of sobriety but sometimes, the night brings out a different side of people. It could be through a normal conversation that I have with them while selling them a pack of cigarettes. The pacing of their words, the tone of their voice, it can appear to be all so different from the reality we are used to when the sun is shining and there are more than two pairs of eyes in the room.

        What happened last week was nothing like anything I have described so far. Nothing in the history of the store happened quite like this, not in a daydream and not in reality. I didn’t write this letter immediately after because I needed to be sure that it was written with a clear head and a sober recollection. I write this letter out of fear for what else might be out there and I simply need you to believe what I say and tell me how I can face daily life after seeing that. Here I go.

        My store is near the main highway outside of town. During the day, the customers are diverse and from every walk of life but at night, it's much more businesslike. I gave you some examples above but I want to emphasize that the customers are working folks with some profession that has to do with driving, such as truckers, EMTs and police officers. They come in with bags under their eyes, no matter how long they’ve been working these types of hours and start with some small talk and pour scalding hot cups of coffee. They might grab some spicy chips or a sweet treat for that little jolt to the senses that will keep them alert and capable of finishing their work that early morning.

        One particular customer, let’s call him Davor, had been a regular throughout my year and half of working there. The other staff, even the two-decade veteran Debra, said that he’d been there everyday, sometimes multiple times, as if it was part of his job. He was a trucker that we could only assume was somewhere in his 70’s, far too old to still be working but he really did love his job. He was one of the friendliest customers that we had, always greeting us when he came, talking with us about our day and saying goodbye with a kind smile on his way out. The only thing I knew about his personal life was that he was a widower for about 5 years or so now and didn’t have any kids. We could hear old country music blasting through his speakers to his partially deaf ears as he pulled in and out, loudly singing out-of-tune but full of life.

        Last week, he came in particularly late, around one AM, but was his normal cheery self. He pulled in his truck to get gas up and was walking around the store, picking up some snacks and shouting some small talk to me about the weather and asking where the jelly-sour rings were. He didn’t look like he had much teeth so I guess he’d suck on them for the powdered sour flakes till they were mush. I walked over to show him where the candy was and noticed he looked much more tired than he normally did but didn’t think too much of it. He had been doing this routine for so long that I figured I had just caught him at the tail end of the drive instead of somewhere in the middle. I still asked him if he was alright and he enthusiastically gave me a ‘Damn Straight!’

        I walked back over to my cash register and waited for him to collect everything that he needed. He made one more stop at the coffee station after he had grabbed all the snacks and he began to pour a cup, our biggest size, 20 ounces. After a few seconds, I started to hear a splashing noise. I looked over and there he was, still holding the coffee and pouring. I shouted out to him casually, ‘You alright?’ but he didn’t answer. I stepped out from behind the desk and looked right at him and he was asleep while standing up. The coffee was pouring all over the counter and onto the floor and even onto his pants and shoes. It was damn hot at all times because the customers liked it to stay hot for as long as possible.

        I said to him, ‘Davor, what the hell are you doing? Wake up!’ Still, he stood there, sleeping. So I walked over to him and tried to shake him by the shoulder. He was old but he was not frail. In fact, he was a hulking mass of a man, even at his age. He was around a hundred-ninety centimeters and looked around 100 kilos, with a big belly like Santa Claus. When I tried to shake him, I felt just how big he really was. I didn’t want to startle him or make him fall over but when I started to shake him, there was resistance like he was pushing back and man, he was still strong. It felt like I was shaking a refrigerator.

        Yet he didn’t blink an eye. I tried to grab the coffee from his hand but the grip was clamped down tight as a vice-grip. I shouted some more and tried shaking again but he was a pillar that wouldn’t be moved. I looked at his face and saw his eyes were closed but he didn’t make any normal sleeping sounds. More worrying, it was totally still. I looked down at his belly and it wasn’t moving either. I even put my hand on his big stomach and it wasn’t moving but how was he still standing? The coffee pot had already been emptied all over the floor and steam rose from around his feet, so much that I could feel my legs beginning to sweat just being next to it. This seemed much more serious than I thought so I did what I think most people would do – I slapped the shit out of him and yelled ‘wake up’.

For a moment, his eyes remained tightly shut but then, they squeezed tighter briefly and jolted wide open. He was staring straight at me but not like he had ever stared at me before. There was no smile behind those eyeballs and I felt he was burning a hole straight through my face with his gaze. I stood silently, just as he did for what seemed so much longer than the few seconds that it actually was. Davor began to blink and looked down at his hands as if it was the first time he’d ever laid eyes on them. He clenched his fist and rotated his wrist and shoulders while stretching things out. He looked down at his legs and the lines on his forehead pressed down as he started to show frustration, grunting low and raspy just loud enough that I could hear. I thought it must have been a stroke and he was left unable to speak while trying to gain control back of his body but then he grabbed the second pot of coffee at the station as it sat black and boiling.

        Grabbing it by the handle, he waited for just a moment, then held it above his head while looking straight at it and poured every last drop out. The coffee was very near boiling temperatures as it splashed across his face and down to his neck, burning off every piece of skin that it touched. I watched with shock as it splashed across most of his face, his body reacting at all. When it finally was empty, he shook just a bit more to let every last drop fall and then threw it straight into the tiled floor, glass shattering and flying all over the room. He yelled out a triumphant scream and flexed both of his arms and kicked each leg up, alternating one at a time.

        The store lights flickered so quickly as he screamed and the steam from the floor became much more transparent as the temperature of the room began to drop rapidly. He looked at me and I couldn’t make a sound as I looked onto the new face of the man I’d seen everyday for more than a year now. His skin melted off, falling to the perimeter of his face where the coffee didn’t touch, revealing few remnants of muscle as mostly his skull was showing. Blood leaked around the edges of his new face, leaving just his forehead, eyebrows, ears and chin. He grabbed me by shirt and threw me to the side, into the shelves where we stacked snacks, knocking the case over on the floor. I had never felt such an impact, it was like getting hit head on by a car. I began to fade in and out of consciousness, feeling the back of my head pulsing in pain.

I saw him walk up to the counter and hop over it with ease, something I could never imagine his old body being capable of. He emptied out the cash register, grabbed several packs of smokes and even reached below to grab the shotgun I had kept behind the counter. He looked over at me and laughed before saying to himself, ‘been waiting for you to croak, you old bitch.’ Then he left for his truck.

I wasn’t out for too long, thanks to another customer who came in shortly after and got me awake and conscious. I was in too much shock to actually communicate with them what I had seen but I did walk to the back to the CCTV system to review the tape, to see if I had proof to anyone other than myself. The screens were nothing but static yet they were still recording. I rewound the tape to see what the last thing it had captured was and saw the old man grab the coffee pot the first time to pour it in his cup. It stopped shortly after. Not a single frame to reflect what I had seen, as if reality had diverged for those terrifying moments and converged back to normal, just to make me look crazy too.

I’m not sure if he ever came back because I never went back myself. I answered phone calls from my manager and met with police for the official report but the conclusion stated something so different than what happened. They said that my head injury drastically affected my memories after a robbery occurred. They had the evidence of an attack and stolen goods but without the video and a believable story, they would never add in my vital details.

The doctor I visited afterwards did not find  a serious brain injury that would have affected my memory to that extent. A minor concussion at worst but more likely a knockout hit, same as a boxer in a fight. I’ve been fine after too, maybe not mentally but I imagine it’s just anxiety or PTSD. The only difference in my life now is I hear more noises at night and every drop of temperature makes me think something else is in the room with me. Maybe the noises were there before, it’s so hard to tell now.

What is written here is undoubtedly what happened but there are so many more questions than answers, and that’s why I write to you Author. I have my own thoughts about what might’ve happened to the old man but I respect your expert opinion. The return address on the envelope is for the gas station where it all happened if you’d like to investigate, as well as the old man’s real name. Police said he’s still missing but they found his truck abandoned near some biker bar outside of town, a real dodgy place next to a cheap strip club.

That’s everything there is to tell you. I hope to read a reply or hear your investigation results on the air.

Peace,

     The Inconvenienced Attendant