Creepypasta & r/nosleep Stories

Tales from the Gas Station (7/?)

Recovering from an injury sucks.

Recovering from an injury when you can't fall asleep sucks worse.

Recovering from an injury when you can't fall asleep while simultaneously being hunted by a sociopathic lackie of a dark god with a personal vendetta against you sucks even worse.

But what sucks even more worse is having to do all of the above and still being called in to work because, as the owners put it, the new guy is "a complete and total moron with willful and malicious idiocy that borders on the criminal."

And so I am here, against the doctors' advice, at the shitty gas station at the edge of town, only a little worse for the wear. What's really incredible is that I've only been back for one day and there's already a body count. (More on that later.)

My right leg is in a cast from ankle to thigh, and I've elected to use crutches because, unsurprisingly, the gas station is not wheelchair accessible. The cast has several signatures and messages, which is very strange because I have no memory of anyone signing it. But that could just be a result of the pain meds.

Looking down now, I can see that Carlos scrawled this message, "Try and stay out of trouble. -C"

There's also a message in red crayon: "Jerry was here."

A few signatures scribbled in sharpie, and a little further up my leg-I have to pull my pants way up to read it-this note: "RtRAtC!" Hm. Well that's annoyingly cryptic. I would check the tape logs to see who I let get so close to my delicate area, but the owners had every camera in the place removed. I guess there was something about finding that secret room full of security camera feeds to bring personal privacy into the public discussion.

I feel like the act of removing all the security cameras was a bit of an overreaction. Especially with Spencer still out there. The police took a statement and confiscated the remains of the bomb. They're taking this whole thing very seriously, and an arrest warrant is out for Spencer Middleton, should he ever show up again. As for Kieffer, things get a little more interesting. The police were unable to find any evidence that he ever even existed. He had no property in his name, no driver's license, no public record of any kind. The only thing even linking him to this town was a grainy picture in an old yearbook photo. It would seem that Kieffer was living off the grid ever since he graduated high school, and now that Spencer's attempt to blow up the gas station failed, Kieffer has suspended his election campaign and simply disappeared.

The sheriff has been sending a new deputy, Arnold, out to check on me once or twice a day. Arnold isn't from around here, which is probably why he agreed to replace Tom as the new gas station babysitter. He's about 6'2", dark-skinned, with a moustache thick enough to plant a yard flamingo in. He has eyes that constantly telegraph the sentiment "knock that nonsense off!" and I have yet to see him smile. I don't know if Arnold will become the next Tom or the next Spencer... right now he could go either way.

Arnold was the one that dropped me off at work today. I'm not supposed to get back behind a steering wheel for a while, which is fine I guess. It's not like I'm going on any road trips any time soon.

On the way to work, we passed the SUV of the man with the beard. The one staked in place on the side of the road by the tree growing up through its engine. I asked Arnold about it, but he just shrugged it off and said I shouldn't worry myself with other people's business. I asked him about the owner of the vehicle, and Arnold said that they think he got lost in the woods just like those hikers last fall. A search and rescue effort was under way, and he was confident that they would find him "one way or the other."

After Arnold dropped me off today, I went about my regular shift-starting duties. I reconciled Marlboro's till, not at all surprised to see that he was somehow $150 over, or that the surplus was entirely in one-dollar coins.