A Sealed Drink

Alcoholic beverages come with the single most important rule: Never drink an unsealed drink or an unattended drink, as they could have easily been spiked with something.

I, however, ignored this rule for the simple fact that I was too stupid and naïve to understand the weight of my own actions. If I had been wiser, maybe I would be in a different position right now. I don't know, and frankly I don't care, but I just needed a place to share this "experience".

I work the night shift for one single reason: It's much quieter. Not having to constantly deal with customers constantly treating me like trash for being an employee at a petrol station makes my job a whole lot easier. This does come with two downsides, however: It's a lot more lonely, as I work in a run-down old place in the middle of the countryside, and I have to deal with the crazies that are expected on any night shift. This isn't about them, however, as I'm sure there's more than enough stories about people like that. I still work there, but the nights are handled by someone else now. I don't care who.

To give you an idea of the scenery, it was a typical dark British night. Cloudy, no stars, sporadic rain and the occasional sound of a passing car.

As with any night, I was bored sitting on my phone. I would just play games, browse social media, message friends and the like.

At one point, I didn't see when, a car appeared at one of the pumps. I must've been occupied with something, because I don't even remember seeing it pull into the lot. I paid it no mind, as usual, because as with a lot of British petrol pumps, this was a pay-at-the-pump deal. The car itself was a sight to see, however.

It was a shitty little blue Ford city car that had fallen aprey to lack of upkeep, as it was covered with random spots of rust, and one of the rear headlights had a spiderweb crack running across it. I didn't see a license plate, and I don't even remember if it had one when I stepped outside. I don't care.

I continued to use my phone for about 20 minutes to distract myself. However, when I looked up, I noticed the shitty little Ford, still running with its engine on next to the pump. I was thinking that perhaps the driver was scoping the place out for whatever reason, and I decided to go outside to confront him. I wasn't a little dude, and I for whatever reason thought it was a good idea in my tired state.

Immediately when I stepped outside the automatic doors, the car floored it out of the lot. No warning, that was that.

I remember thinking about how incredibly sketchy the entire situation seemed, but I quickly put the thought behind me as I laid eyes on an out-of-place item on top of the pump. I texted a friend that I was going out to investigate the strange occurrence. The clock on my phone read 3:08.

A bottle of whiskey, or at least I thought it was, from the shape of the bottle and the colour of the liquid inside. I picked it up to examine it, and that's when I noticed something that made alarm bells go off inside me. The bottle was still sealed, but the bottle had no branding at all on it. No logos, no ingredients, no warnings, no nothing. Just a plain black label. I tried to convince myself to just smash the thing or throw it away, but I was a sad, pathetic 17 year old and any chance to drink alcohol was good enough in my book.

I'm sure you've deduced at this point that there was something messed up about that drink, but I was none the wiser at the time.

Against my better judgement, I broke the seal, popped off the cap and had a swig.

I don't remember it tasting particularly out of the ordinary, but I do remember a slight metallic taste that I couldn't distinguish very well. I didn't finish it, as I suddenly remembered through a half drunken, half exhausted haze: "Shit, I'm at work!" I exclaimed to myself.

In my haze, I half turned to face to see the forest clearing in which this little station lied. I remember seeing something inbetween a couple trees, but I was too fucked up to even recognise what it was. I do however remember immediately thinking that it shouldn't be there.

As I stumbled back to the doors, my eyes suddenly snapped back to the two things inbetween the trees.

My drunken eyes finally adjusted to recognise the two objects in the clearing.

Two bright yellow eyes, glowing through the darkness near the top of the trees.

For whatever reason, I didn't have the immediate reaction to run the fuck away from whatever that was, I just stood, captivated, but that was when it began to show its teeth.

A small amount of glowing white objects slowly appeared slightly below the eyes.

As if on cue, instead of chasing after me, or emerging all scary-like from the trees, all of the objects just noiselessly fell to the ground. Just like that.

This was what finally snapped me out of that trance.

I ran with unimaginable terror back through the doors, locking them behind me. I cowered behind the counter, rocking back and forth and whispering unintelligibly to myself.

At some point in my freakout episode, the service bell on the counter went off. Peering my head over the counter, I laid eyes upon a normal looking woman. She gave me a concerned look, and I immediately stood up, getting an apology ready.

"Young man?"

"I-I apologise, ma'am... May I help you?"

"Young man?"

"Yeah?"

"Young man?"

I immediately got a very bad feeling. She just repeated those two words, for god knows how long. I remember that her words sort of rang in my ears, and that her mouth movements almost seemed stiff to the point of being robotic. Her eyes suddenly seemed dead.

I closed my eyes and cowered behind the counter once again. ''You've been drugged, snap yourself out of it, you dumb shit. You're at work, get yourself together. ''I kept telling myself things like this until my thoughts finally drowned out the robotic voice, and I slowly reopened my eyes to find her presence gone. In her place, however, were the two yellow eyes I had seen outside, glowing in place.

That was enough for me.

I vomited onto the counter. All the while, I could still hear that fucking voice, drumming out those damned two words. I collapsed onto the hard, cold floor.

I don't know how long I lay there, clutching my aching head. Ignoring the sense of impending doom.

The last "fuck you" was waiting for me when I looked back over the counter.

Lining every single fucking window at the front of the store, was a face. No two was the same, but two things were shared across the ensemble: The first being a mouth opened far wider than any humanoid could ever manage, revealing rows of those same glowing white teeth as before. The second being a look of pure, unfiltered hatred.

All looking at me with their glowing yellow eyes.

All whispering those same fucking two words at me.

I don't even want to describe what those disgusting apparitions looked like. I just... Don't want to think about them.

The only thing I can remember from that point until when it was all over was a feeling of primal fear, and my vision occasionally darkening. Or was that the lights? My pounding headache at this point was so painful that I don't even remember when the heads decided to leave.

I half-woke-up to a brightly lit store in the middle of nowhere.

No heads.

No eyes.

No teeth.

No whispers.

After I had cleaned up the vomit on the counter, I sat back down in my chair.

My first instinct was to check my phone. One notification.

Wait, what? ''One notification? What the fuck was going on here? Why hadn't anyone asked me if I was ok?''

It was a text from my friend; a reply to the text I had sent an age ago.

I checked the time on the message, and then my phone clock.

The clock on my phone read 3:16.

''Wait, no, no, no. That's fucking impossible! All of that happened in eight minutes? ''

As I tried to wrap my head around this, I noticed that I felt completely fine and normal. I had sobered up, it seemed. Really, I felt fine. From that point on, everything seemed somewhat ordinary. I even mustered up the courage to unlock the doors when the clock hit 5.

I immediately told my friend about the entire ordeal when I got home over the phone. As expected, he didn't take it seriously at all and thought I was pranking him. When I eventually convinced him otherwise, he told me what I had already been thinking for a while then: that the drink had been spiked with something. I wanted to agree with him, I really did. But there was too much going against that- The clarity of what I saw, the unbroken seal on the bottle.

I even had to vouch in front of my boss when he called me later on, asking why the security cameras shut off around half 2- Around when that car pulled in. I don't know. I have no fucking clue.

As for the bottle itself, I left it on the far side of the counter when I initially came back into the store.

I just hope the poor sod working after me had some common sense and left the thing well alone.