Graveyard Shift

 

Bill wakes up. It's half-past ten, and Bill has to get ready for work. He got the dreadful night shift (Or graveyard shift as it is known amongst his coworkers). This time he knows he will be alone in the supermarket warehouse. Having to restock most of the store at night is peaceful and pretty doable. Bill usually listens to the music he wants, or he can simply listen to some audiobooks or podcasts. So, the graveyard shift isn't that bad for him. But he understands the nuisance that is sleeping during the day, when everybody is out there, living their lives. Fast-paced lives. Bill was an accountant before taking in the job as a restocker. He was fired for being "too slow". His company wanted more proactive and dynamic people working. Bill thought it was some utter bullshit. What does it even mean, to be proactive and dynamic? The job was to run numbers. Simple as that. But Bill is happier now anyways, he likes the calm and quiet of the "people-less" aisles in the supermarket. The noises of the rats crawling through the tubing and stealing food from the warehouse. Most of his coworkers despise the graveyard shift, in fact, Bill is the only one that works exclusively at night. All the others are on a more rotative schedule.

He arrives at the supermarket and says hello to Raoul, Tony and Sam. The same 3 rats he always sees crawling around the cheese aisle. He never told his superiors about them and feeds them whenever he cans. Harmless little creatures. They do tend to scare him whenever he is walking around the aisles and restocking. There's always an element of surprise when you turn a corner of an aisle. You never truly know what's on the other side until you turn it. You may hear a sound, go check it (slowly of course) and when you get there, there's nothing. Probably it was Sam or Raoul or Tony.

The warehouse is flooded tonight. Strange, as it hasn't been raining lately. Maybe a broken pipe. Bill went to check it out. More work than usual tonight so it seems… Bill sees a big leak of water coming from the ceiling. Should Bill himself take care of it, he wonders. What the hell, let's fix it, he got time.

Bill manages to go to the ceiling of the warehouse and it's a moldy old place. Some sort of pipe had burst.“I better get out of here, this is above my pay grade. I should call the manager.” he says out loud.

Bill hears something crawling around him, he can't see. It's too dark. It moves fast, and it sounds like it's pretty angry. He can hear something dripping as it moves, maybe it's drooling. What is this? Bill tries to remain calm. He has always been a calm person in difficult situations. This is quite a difficult situation right?

The creature starts to growl towards Bill. Bill looks around (trying to see what he can in this pitch-black room) and tries to find something to defend himself against it. This creature is quite eerie, he can see it better now, something oozing from its face, or whatever that is. Since it has no eyes, no nose, just a big mouth with sharpened teeth, dripping drool from it. The body it's covered in ugly and dirty brown fur, and it's on all fours like a dog or a wolf. Where did this thing come from? Thought Bill while managing to get an old pipe from the floor. He's ready to defend himself. The creature runs towards Bill, he closes his eyes and grabs the pipe as hard as he can, and manages to get a hit right in the head of the creature. It fell down. Is it dead? Just to make sure let's keep smashing it with the pipe, Bill thought.

Bill leaves the ceiling and goes back to the store. What should he do about this? The creature died, but what was it? He decides to call the manager.

-Hey Jim, sorry to bother you this late, but there was this kind of incident in the ceiling...

-No problem Bill, what kind of incident are you talking about? It's not raining or is it?

-No, no nothing like that... - Says Bill, and as he says this he hears a noise in the other aisle. The cheese aisle. Is it Sam or Raoul? Tony? - Give me a sec, don't hang up, I heard a noise.

Bill, decided (against his better judgment) to go check it out. He passes through the aisle, very slowly, still holding the pipe strongly. "Bill? Bill?" - He hears from his phone. Good, he's still there, if anything goes wrong he can call the police.

Bill started to sense this fear. Sweating from everywhere, trembling in horror. What is this sense of fear? It's probably just one of the rats. He gets slowly to the cheese aisle, and as he suspected it was just Sam, or is it, Tony? It doesn't matter, it's not a big monster.

"Hey Jim, I'm back. Sorry needed to check, it was...." - Bill couldn't finish the sentence. He dropped the phone on the ground. The grotesque image he saw in front of him didn't allow him to move his feet. The pipe he was holding on so strongly fell on the ground. In front of him, not one but hundreds, thousands of creatures like the one he killed in the ceiling. He can see them better now. They look like rats. Big mutated and monstrous rats, with no eyes or nose. Just big mouths, ready to rip and eat flesh.

They start moving towards Bill, but strangely ignoring him and passing him by. One of them stops in front of him. No way, it's Sam. He nods at Bill and they all leave through the front door. Thousands of ding ding from the sliding door opening through. They will unleash hell on earth. Bill still couldn't move nor believe what he just saw. Is it the end for mankind?