One Hour to Closing

The story I am telling you actually happened in the summer of 2013.

I was working at the local Dollar General one night and the time on the register clock read 7:58 pm. The store would be closing in the next hour and my friend Susan had invited me to this killer party in Raleigh, so you can imagine how ready I was to punch out. At 8:05 pm, a man in his early thirties walked into the store and approached the cash register. His hair was black, oily and came down to his shoulders. The man's skin was pale, almost white, and his crooked, large nose reminded me of a crow. But his eyes, those great, big, wide glazers were baby blue and behind them seemed to be a happy carousel of mania.

He put his callused hands on the counter and asked, "Can I use your bathroom?"

Inside my head I groaned, because I had just cleaned the bathroom not long ago, but I smiled like a good employee and replied, "Yes, you may. It's located right over there."

I pointed him to the direction of the lavatory door that was located down aisle 20. The man gave me this weird and almost childish grin and said, "Thank you."

He entered the bathroom, shut the door, and locked it. Seeing as I had just completed the closing sanitary procedures I would know if he did anything gross, such as urinate on the floor or stop up the toilet. With my arms folded I looked down aisle 20 and watched the bathroom. At any moment I expected to hear the toilet flush, the sound of a running water and for him to step out.

But he sat in there.

And sat in there.

And sat in there.

And sat in there.

Eventually the time on the clock read 8:50 pm. I approached the bathroom door and lightly knocked on it.

"Are you okay in there?" I called out. There was no response. I went back to my register and made a five minute closing announcement. I made sure to speak a little louder than normal as a subtle way of telling the man to get the fuck out of the bathroom and go home.

9:00 pm. Right before making the final call, the man stepped out of the bathroom and came up to the register. This time he wasn't smiling. A matter of fact there was no expression on his face, but that same eerie look in his eyes remained the same. In a very low and dark voice, the man said, "It has been done."

Something about his tone sent a cold feeling rattled down my spine and made my feet shake inside the Adidas they filled. The way he stared at me made me feel extremely uncomfortable. I asked him, "What are you talking about?"

The man smiled a little and left the store.

Fucking weirdo.

As I stepped around the register to lock the front door, I saw a trail of red foot prints on the freshly buffed and polished floor. At first I thought perhaps there had been a ketchup spill or something, but I then noticed it was blood. The followed the foot prints from the front of the store, down aisle 20 and realized they stopped at the bathroom door.

"What the hell?" I asked myself, deciding whether or not I should look inside the bathroom. When I opened the door my jaw dropped. There was blood smeared everywhere. The sink, the toilet bowl, the mirror and the paper towel dispenser looked as if a toddler had went crazy with red finger paint.

On the tile floor was a pentagram and across from it on the wall, written in blood, read the words:

"God to son, Son to the people, 

the people to love, love to hate, 

hate to nails, nails to crucifix, 

crucifix to blood."

I will never forget mopping up that mess, and what creeps me out the most is the man is still out there somewhere, walking amongst us.

(I have disclosed the name of the town where this Dollar General is located to avoid any legal issues and having people call the business asking about the bloody bathroom incident.)