I got a job as a night guard at a grocery store. They left me a list of horrifying rules that I wish I never followed. I found the job posting on Craigslist 2 weeks ago. Night guard at West Market, midnight to 6:00 a.m. shift, $21 an hour. The first thing that came to my mind was what kind of grocery store needed security while closed. But my rent was 3 weeks overdue, so I took it. The store sat at the edge of a rundown strip mall with flickering street lights. As I walked toward the entrance Tuesday night, a woman hurriedpast me toward the parking lot. "You must be Aaron," she said breathlessly. Clive left instructions on the conveyor belt at register 1. Before I could ask her name, she was already driving away, tires screeching. Inside, the store looked normal, bright fluorescent lights, soft jazz music playing from speakers. I found a folded paper waiting for me at register 1 with my name written in red ink. The note welcomed me to the West family and listed eight rules for my shift. Most seemed reasonable. Patrol every 30 minutes.monitor security cameras from the break room, but others made my skin crawl. Rule two, do not go down aisle 7 or look down aisle 7. Rule three, ignore knocking sounds from the freezer section. Rule five, clean up blood pools in the meat section immediately, but do not touch the blood. Rule six, if you see a woman in the store, go to the break room until she leaves. I figured it was some kind of loyalty test. Maybe they had problems with guards not following protocol. My first patrol started at 12:30 a.m. The empty storefelt wrong. Plastic sheets covered the meat displays, and the overhead lights hummed with an electrical buzz that hadn't been noticeable earlier. When I reached the aisles, I carefully kept my eyes on the floor while passing aisle 7. Near the frozen foods, I found a shopping cart abandoned in the middle of the walkway. Rule four said to return all carts immediately. I pushed it toward the front doors, the wheels squeaking loudly in the silence. That's when I heard sobbing. It sounded like achild crying somewhere deeper in the store. My chest tightened. Maybe a customer had gotten locked in after closing. "Hello, who's there?" I called out, following the sound through the maze of aisles. The crying continued broken and desperate. But as I got closer, I realized it was coming from aisle 7. Help me. The voice cried through sobs. Please help me. I positioned myself at the end of the aisle, careful not to look down it. Something felt off about the voice. It sounded identical each time, like arecording stuck on repeat. Come out and I'll help you, I shouted. The crying stopped instantly. Then I heard heavy footsteps running down aisle 7, heading straight for me. I ran to the break room and locked the door, my heart hammering. The break room had six security monitors showing different areas of the store. Notably, none showed aisle 7. The camera seemed deliberately positioned to avoid that section entirely. During my second patrol at 1:00 a.m., I heard violent knocking from the freezer section. Theglass doors shook as something pounded against them from inside. Handprints appeared on the condensate, but the fingers were impossibly long and thin, definitely not human, following the rules, I ignored it completely. At 2:30 a.m., the jazz music suddenly cut out. The silence was deafening. I immediately retreated to the break room as instructed, waiting 15 minutes before the music resumed. Around 3:00 a.m., I discovered a massive pool of blood near the meat display. It was still wet, spreading slowly across the white tiles.The metallic smell made me gag, but the rules were clear, cleaned it up without touching it. I spent 10 terrifying minutes mopping the blood while completely exposed in the open store. Every shadow seemed to move. Every sound made me jump. During my 3:30 patrol, I saw her. A woman in a blue linen dress stood perfectly still in aisle 9. Long black hair hung to her waist like a curtain. In her hand was a wicker basket filled with raw meat that dripped blood onto the floor in steady drops. I immediately started backing toward thebreak room without making eye contact, but I could hear her high heels clicking against the tile, matching my pace exactly. When I tried to run, she was somehow ahead of me. Shopping carts had been stacked in impossible towers throughout the aisles, creating a maze that trapped me. I was forced to take a different route. In my panic, I stepped into aisle 7. Something crouched on the floor. A mass of gray cloth and pale skin folded like a crying child, but clearly not human. It had too many joints, too many limbs. The moment itsensed me, the thing began unfolding itself with wet, crackling sounds. I ran faster than I ever had, barely making it to the break room. Through the security monitor, I watched the woman stand outside my door for 23 minutes. Her shadow was visible underneath, perfectly still. When I switched to a different camera angle, I saw something that made me physically sick. She was facing the camera, but I could still see the back of her head. Her neck had rotated completely around like an owl. Eventually, she left, scaling up thewall like a spider and disappearing through the front doors into the night. The remaining hours crawled by. I heard more crying from Isisle 7 during each patrol. The knocking from the freezers grew more violent, cracking the glass. Blood pools appeared in three different locations, each one larger than the last. At exactly 6:00 a.m., sunlight broke through the front windows. Employees started arriving with coffee and tired expressions. The moment the first person entered, I ran to my car and drove away as fast as possible. I'dnever felt such relief. Whatever nightmare shift I just survived, it was over. When I got on the highway, I turned on the radio to celebrate. The same jazz melody from the store began playing through my speaker. I frantically changed stations, but every single one was playing that same looping saxophone tune. I turned the radio off completely, but the music continued from somewhere inside my car. I realized with growing terror that my shift at West Market wasn't really over.
