Chapter 1 – Chap 1

Hi there, this is my first time posting on this platform, and honestly, its because I don’t know where else to go. Nobody believes us, and honestly I wouldn’t believe it had it not happened to me.

Link to Update #1

I’ll start out with some background. My name is Kate. I am seventeen currently, and I work at a local chain grocery store in the New England area, United States. For obvious reasons I will not name the town or the store. It was a decently large store withe an even bigger back area. I’ll try and explain the layout as best as I can. As you walk in the entrance, you are put right into the produce section, and on your right is the food court and take out kitchen. If you keep going straight, you will find the Bakery on your right, and then the Deli in the corner of the store. Between the Deli counter and the Bakery are two large, black double doors. This is one of three access points to the back area. If you go through these doors, there is a door to the back of the Bakery on the right, and a door to the back of the Deli on the left. If you keep straight through this ‘hallway’ of sorts, you will pass another black set of double doors on your left. These doors take you to the storage areas. Its a very expansive area with high ceilings. At the end of the hallway is a large metal door. We have never opened this door, which is made evident by the crates and boxes that block the way. From the looks of it, it is an old walk in freezer, but I’m not sure. The door is about ten feet tall and fifteen wide. Like I said, massive. Right next to the door is the time clock. And then to the right at the end of the hallway leads to the offices, break room, conference room, employee restrooms and lockers. The layout of this area isn’t really relevant so I won’t go into it. The only important place is that door, for reasons I will tell you in a moment.

If you go on past the doors between the Bakery and Deli, you are at the corner of the store. You turn left, and you are at the seafood department. Between the Deli and the Seafood department is the second access point to the back area. If you walk past the seafood department, you will find yourself at the meat department. There is a butcher area, and then cooler shelves on the back wall with all prepackaged meats. In the corner on this side of the store, you will find the milk fridges.Between the Meat department and the Milk cases is the third and final access point to the back area. The rest of the layout is typical of any grocery store. Isles upon isles of items. There are twelve cash registers up front. We really only use eight of them, though. I’ve never seen some of them used. There is also a self check out. It consists of ten registers. Nine of which are meant for customer use, and the other is used by the attendant to oversee and fix any issues that a customer might have. Directly behind self check out is the exit. All other cash registers are to the right of self check out. To the left of self check out is the Costumer Service Booth. Directly in front of the regular cash registers is the online shopping department, customers order online, someone from the store goes around and gets everything, and then the customer picks its up. You know the one.

Well, that’s the basic layout. Onto staffing, during peak hours, or ‘rush’ as we call it, all eight usual lanes are open. Only Lanes 2, 7, 11, and 12 remain closed. There are usually two managers running the front end and about four clerks. I.e. the guys who bag or get carts or whatever.

During rush, there are easily one hundred employees in the store. At close, there are four.

There is a manager, a cashier, a self check out attendant, and a clerk.

Our store used to be a different store with a different layout. It closed about two years ago and sat abandoned until the new store bought it and totally renovated it. The old grocery store was dated and bordered on creepy. The corners were dark and dismal. The old food court sat in one such shadowy corner. It almost seemed like light couldn’t even get in there, if that makes sense. Our new store has been open for about eight months. I was hired five months ago, just after my seventeenth birthday. I used to work at a restaurant, but I was laid off, because, ya know, COVID. When I was hired, it was when the state really shut down. School was now completely online, and I had a lot of spare time on my hands. When I finished training and was now on my own, it was the start of the panic buying period. No toilet paper, not paper towels, no frozen foods, no meat, fresh or frozen. It was a nightmare. There was an all out stampede when we would get paper goods. And don’t even get me started about when we would get Lysol or Clorox wipes. The lines were back to the end caps (end of the first set of isles for you non-grocery store folks). The store was packed 24/7 and the customers were horrendous. Some days we couldn’t even run breaks. Every register (even 2, 7, 11, and 12) were open. Which I had never seen.

But fortunately, things cooled down eventually, which brings me to now.

Lets get to what you all have been waiting for.

It was a Thursday. I was scheduled to close, 6-11pm. We had just had a rather nasty storm which knocked out our power. Luckily, though, we had a generator, which we had been running off for the past couple days.

I am a cashier. Believe it or not, I don’t hate my job. Frankly, its easy money. The shifts fly by fast and the other employees are good people. Fun people, to be more precise. Most would think a closing shift at a grocery store would be five hours condemned to sitting around and cashing out the three total customers who came during that time. However, closing shifts at our lovely little store are quite the opposite. Nobody comes in and the store manager isn’t there to spoil our fun. And by fun I mean doing no work at all and just screwing around. Now, I close this store a lot, and I always work with the same people. (I’m changing their name for privacy’s sake.) The closing manager was Tanya, a twenty six year old mother of one, who has worked at the store since it opened eight months prior. If you want to know what she is like, remember the girl who would pierce her eyebrow in the back of Spanish class in high school? Yeah, her. Well shes the cool mom now, and we are inseparable when we work together. I was the cashier. A girl named Abby was the self check out attendant. I don’t know her that well, but she seems sweet. She was around my age, but she attended a different school than me. The clerk was Roger. Roger is fifty one years old, six foot two inches tall, and one of the funniest people I have met to date. He is built and still very strong despite his age. He’s pretty lean too, with only the slight bump of a beer belly.

The shift started normal, from what the mid-day shift had told me, there really wasn’t a rush, so we knew that it was going to be dead that night. By 9:30pm, we had served our last customer. Of course we didn’t know that at the time, but I just want to emphasize how empty it was.

By 10:00pm, the other cashier and clerk went home. Leaving only Tanya, Abby, Roger, and myself in the store. It was all fun and games, the four of us joking around and waiting for 11:00pm to come around. At about 10:40, Abby had to use the bathroom. So Tanya covered her station as she went.

She came back a minute later, she looked confused.

“The door is open.” she said, her voice matching her confused look.

“Like the front door?” I asked.

“No. The door next to the time clock. The big door.” She said.

Tanya looked confused.

“The old freezer door?” Tanya asked.

“Yeah.” Abby said.

Tanya went to the phone and patched into the intercom system. It dinged to life across the empty store.

“Roger report to the front podium, Roger to front podium, thank you.” Tanya said into the phone.

A minute later, Roger was there.

“Did you open the freezer door?” Tanya asked.

“No. Is that some kind of joke?” He said as he chuckled. “That freezer doesn’t work and it’s been locked since the store opened.”

“Well its open.” Abby added in.

“Did we need to store anything in there when we lost power from the storm?” Tanya asked.

“No. Like I said it doesn’t work.” He said. “Plus it’s a pain to open. When the store first opened, we put some equipment in there to store it, but when we went to take it out it took me and three other big guys to open the damn thing. Its not a door that can just blow open.”

Tanya handed me the override keys.

“Roger lets check it out. You guys watch the front end.”

They walked off and left Abby and I alone.

We heard the loud creaking of them shutting the door. It was loud enough that we could hear it from the registers. But how did we not hear it open?

I kept that thought to myself, Abby looked freaked out enough.

We just made small talk until they got back.

The time was now 10:50pm. Ten minutes til close.

“We shut the door.” Tanya said as she wiped the sheen of sweat from her forehead.

“It was no easy feat.” Roger added. “But it seems like its easier to close it compared to opening it.”

“But how did it get opened?” I asked. “When I went on break at nine, it was closed.”

We all just looked at each other. Tanya shrugged.

“We leave in ten minutes, this may be a problem, but its not a problem for us. Night crew can deal with it.” Tanya said.

“Night crew doesn’t get here until 11:30, shouldn’t we tell them?” Abby asked.

Then we heard the intercom pick up. We heard that signature ding as the line connected to the system. But nothing came.

And none of us could have done it. All four of us were around my register, nowhere near a phone.

“What the hell?” Tanya said.

I glanced down at my phone. 10:53pm. Seven minutes til close.

“Why does all the weird stuff have to happen right as we are about to leave? Couldn’t this wait like ten minutes?” I asked sarcastically.

We all laughed nervously.

“Can’t we just leave now? Say there were generator issues?” Abby pleaded, she looked beyond freaked out.

“Dave will have my ass if he finds out that we left early.” Tanya shot back.

We all knew the store owner was a stickler. There was no use, if we left, we would almost assuredly be kissing our jobs goodbye.

With every ounce in my body, I wish we had just left. Right then, right there. I wish we said screw it and got out. We all had that sinking feeling in our guts, but none of us wanted to say it. If we had left, maybe all of us would have made it out.

It was 10:56. Four minutes til close.

We all just sat around nervously chatting the minutes away. They went by so slowly.

Then it happened. The lights cut. Every single light in store was out in a second.

We all unanimously came to the decision of “fuck this” and bolted for the main exit. Or at least where we thought it was. We couldn’t see anything, we found it quickly though

Locked. What the hell, how?

“Why is it locked?” I asked.

“Shhh!” Tanya shushed me.

“You have the key, Tanya! It can’t be locked!” Roger yelled.

“I said shut up!” Tanya hissed.

“Unlock it, Ta-” Abby whispered desperately, before Tanya put her hand against Abby’s mouth.

“Listen!” She hissed again, this time almost too quiet to hear.

Abby, Roger, and I trained our ears in on what Tanya had been hearing.

Creaking. The same creaking we heard when Tanya and Roger had closed the door earlier.

“How…” I trailed off, barely above a whisper.

“Kate give me my keys now.” Tanya said. I just remembered that I still

I could feel she was the body right next to me. I fumbled in my pockets for her keys. I pulled them out and they made their characteristic jingle. We all cringed silently. She fumbled for the door key and felt her way to the side of the wall beside the sliding doors where the locking mechanism was.

“A little light would be helpful.” Tanya said, but it was barely audible.

The door was still creaking open in the background, how slowly was it opening?

We all rummaged through our pockets, and Abby was the first to get hers out.

“What the fuck?” She whispered.

I soon shared her confusion when I went to open my phone, and it wouldn’t. I was met with a black screen. I tried holding the power button to boot it back up, thinking that it just shut down or died, but I got nothing. Not even the faint little battery icon that told you the phone was dead. Nothing.

But that made no sense, it was at like 80% when I last checked the time.

Roger had the same luck and so did Tanya. That was when we actually looked out the sliding glass doors, and we saw nothing. No lights from the street lamps, no traffic lights, no car lights.

It was like it was just a void out there.

“Maybe we should stay in here.” I said tentatively.

“And get eaten by whatever is crawling out of that freezer? No thank you.” Roger whispered.

“For once I’m with Roger on this one.” Tanya said.

By now, our eyes had sort of adjusted, and we could decently see what was around us. Tanya reached for the locking mechanism, but then she stopped.

“How…” She said.

The place where the lock had once been was now empty. It was like the lock had never been there to begin with.

I tried my phone again, and this time, it turned right on. It didn’t even act as if it was turned off. Everyone had the same luck. The time read 11:02pm.

“We should have just left.” Abby whined.

“I’m sorry if I didn’t expect something like this to happen!” Tanya whispered back.

“Guys! There are like six other exits to the store.” I said, trying to deescalate the situation.

“Make it five because theirs no way we’re going to the one by the break room. We’d have to walk by the freezer that is now obviously open.” Roger chipped in.

“Wait, I don’t hear it anymore.” I said, noticing the lack of noise and the eerie silence that grew thicker by the second.

“The door.” Abby said under her breath.

“Lets stay calm, lets try the exit for the online grocery department.” Tanya suggested.

We slowly crept out of the vestibule that the exit was in. I had never seen the store this dark, it was unnaturally dark. We all cut our phone flashlights and made our way to the other exit. Our footfalls were silent as we crept along in a line, holding onto the backs of each other’s shirt. That’s how dark it was, we could barely see the outline of who was in front of us.

I knew that Tanya was leading the charge, with Abby right behind her. I was holding onto the back of Abby’s shirt, and Roger was behind me.

We turned the corner for the online shopping department. We made our way past the rows of carts and soon the lights from the empty wall refrigerators and freezers illuminated the room.

“How are these on? The rest of the power is cut?” Abby asked, her voice shaking.

“If I’m being honest, I really don’t wanna know.” Roger said from behind me.

“I see your sense of humor hasn’t been scared off.” Tanya hissed back.

We finally arrived at the door. This door was not meant for customers, only employees. There were those plastic flaps that hung down over the sliding door. I really don’t know how else to describe them, so bear with me. The lights from the wall freezers behind us illuminated the door.

Tanya pushed the plastic flaps aside and the light behind us illuminated smudges on the glass. Our eyes widened as we say that they were hand prints. They were various shapes and sizes, all seemed to be clawing at the glass, as if trying to escape.

We looked up from the hand prints to see a tall shadow standing on the opposing side of the glass.

It leaned down until its bloodshot yellow eyes were level with ours.

“It’s begun.” It said in the scariest, most hideous voice you could imagine.

Its jaw popped with every syllable and the words seemed to gurgle out of its throat like they were so unnatural to it that it was hurting.

We all screamed and jumped back. It let out what I can only assume was supposed to be a laugh.

All of us booked it out of the department. We hadn’t noticed that the lights from the freezer had once again cut out, and we were plunged into darkness once again.

We held onto each other’s shirts as we dashed past the registers and into the main store.

“Service Booth!” Tanya yelled and we all angled ourselves towards the direction we thought it was in.

We all slammed into the counter, and rather than trying the door, we all vaulted over the counter and landed with a thud. Tanya wasted no time in pulling the key out. The lock for this door was still there surprisingly. It opened and we piled in. Tanya spun around and locked it. We were all breathing heavy, and Tanya was leaning against the door. She slid down to the floor, still breathing heavy.

We caught out breath for a moment before I slid my phone out.

“It’s 11:13, the night crew will be here in like fifteen minutes.” I said.

“No offense, Kate, but I don’t think they’re coming.” Roger gasped out.

“And if they did, I don’t think they could get in. There are no locks. I was able to see that the second door we went to didn’t have one.” Tanya added.

“So what do we do?” Abby asked.

“I don’t know.” Tanya said, dejectedly.

We sat there in agonizing silence, reeling and trying to comprehend all that had happened.

11:28pm.

“Night crew would be here by now.” Tanya broke the silence while staring at her phone. “They get here around 11:25 to clock in and get ready.”

Roger sighed. “No service, can’t even call for help.”

“Same here.” I said.

Tanya and Abby nodded in agreement while looking at their phones.

“Try the store phone.” I suggested.

Tanya stood up and made her way to the store phone mounted on the wall.

She dialed 911, but it didn’t connect.

“Phones are disconnected.” She said as she slumped back down to the floor.

“Worth a shot at least.” I mumbled.

11:34pm.

“I need to pee.” Abby said.

We all groaned.

“What? I didn’t go earlier because that damn door was open.” She retorted.

“Okay, how about we all go, let’s not split up, please.” I said.

“Fine.” Tanya said.

We cautiously exited the booth, it was still dark, except, in the distance, we could see light from behind the first set of black double doors. The set between the Bakery and Deli. The light was flickering.

“Nothing that any of you say can convince me to go back there.” Roger said.

“No need to worry about that, I have no desire to investigate.” Tanya whispered.

We arrived at the public bathroom and we all entered the woman’s side, Roger included.

One by one, we went to the bathroom, everyone else was on high alert for anything.

Abby was the last to go. I guess she wanted to see everyone else go to make sure it was safe or something. She was washing her hands, when she suddenly looked up into the mirror, eyes wide with fear. Not one moment later, a shadowy hand reached out and grabbed her neck.

She screamed and thrashed around violently. The tried to get a hold of the hand grabbing her, but every time she brought her hand up to grab the shadowy wrist, the hand would go right through it.

We all grabbed onto a limb and the hand pulled her towards the mirror, we pulled with all of our might to keep her with us, but the hand was strong. Tanya had grabbed one leg, and Roger the other. My arms were wrapped around her slim torso.

She only writhed more when the hand pulled her head into the mirror. I heard her muffled screams. The phantom hand gave another pull and my elbow entered the mirror. It was freezing cold. And whatever was surrounding my elbow was thick and sticky. I immediately screamed and yanked my elbow out, which only lead to Abby being dragged in deeper. Her panicked screams became muffled groans as the three of us held onto her ankles for dear life. Abby was dragged completely into the mirror. All of our hands were now in it too. I was so cold, so empty. The thickness and sliminess returned, enveloping our hands and beckoning us deeper.

I am ashamed to say this, but we all let go, pulling away with such force that we all stumbled back and hit the wall opposite the mirror and preceded to fall on top of each other.

“We need to go, now!” Tanya yelled, and her and Roger were up on their feet in an instant. I remained on the ground, still reeling from what had just occurred. Tanya and Roger, after seeing that I wasn’t getting up, dragged me to my feet and hauled me out of the bathroom.

I caught one last glance at the mirror, and I saw Abby’s face. She looked terrified and sad, above all. Her image in the mirror faded as I was dragged out into the darkness.

Now, reality set in. My feet finally caught some traction and I was bolting for the Service Booth with Tanya and Roger.

We vaulted the counter and opened the door and piled in. Tanya shot up and locked it, before collapsing to the ground.

Abby was lost.

“How did this happen?” I asked.

I was answered with silence.

11:51pm.

I was sitting with my back against the wall. I had zoned out for a minute. I looked to the corner behind where Tanya and Roger were sitting. I saw something materializing. In my daze, I just stared at it. It was when its eyes appeared that I screamed. Those same bloodshot yellow eyes.

Tanya and Roger whipped their heads around to look at the corner, and they screamed too. We were up and out of the Service Booth in moments. We were foolish enough to let a flimsy lock give us a false sense of security.

We burst out into the store, through the produce section, and were heading straight towards the second access point to the back area. It seemed to be even darker the further back we ran, only being able to barely see the dark outline of display cases.

I was almost at the doors when I heard a crash, I spun my head around to see the outline of Roger laid out on the floor, he had ran into a rack and tripped. I almost turned back to help him when I saw the eyes. I saw them through the impossibly thick darkness. Then I saw these tentacle like things reach out from the absolute darkness and into my line of sight. It wasn’t really a ‘line of sight’ but it was the difference between everything being a black void and being able to make out shapes.

The tentacles first wrapped around his legs, to keep him down, then more crept up and enveloped him whole, and slowly dragged him into the darkness.

He stopped his screaming for a moment before he screamed. “Run!”

His screaming continued, though it became muffled, and then ceased all together.

Tears streamed down my cheek, as I burst through the set of double doors. These would lead me to the storage area, where there was another exit that Tanya and I could try. But what faced us on the other side of the door was not the storage area. But the gaping maw of the freezer stared back at us. We were at the first set of double doors, but how? we had definitely gone into the ones between the Deli and seafood department, not the ones between the Deli and Bakery? This made no sense.

There was a dim light flickering on the ceiling.

“Fuck no.” Tanya said as she grabbed my arm and dragged me back through the doors.

But again, we were in the hallway. The empty abyss of the open freezer staring back at us.

We went back through the doors, but were met with the same sight. No matter how many times we went back and forth. Only that fucking freezer was there to greet us.

We heard wet footsteps, like something wet and squishy was being walked on. I really don’t know how to explain it.

But it was coming from the decommissioned freezer.

Before I describe the next part, this hallway was like a good forty feet long. That is the distance from the double doors to the freezer.

A shadowy hand reached out and grabbed Tanya by the neck, and started dragging her. It was the same hand that dragged Abby. It extended out the enture forty feet with ease. It was like that fucking scene from It where that fucking clown’s arm extends all the way across the street to grab Georgie.

I tried to reach out and grab her arm, but it was too late. He was jettisoned into abyss of the freezer without as much as a scream.

And I ran. Instead of going back through the double doors, I slammed through the door to the Deli on my left. And thank whoever or whatever is up there that I actually entered the Deli.

I tore ass over the case and into the isles, hearing those wet footsteps thundering after me. For some reason I knew it couldn’t have been the tall shadow with the yellow eyes. I don’t know why, but I just did.

I was almost to the end of the isles, when I saw that they didn’t end. In the distance all I could see were more and more isles, seemingly going on forever. I ran as fast as I could until I could no longer hear those footsteps. I slowed and then ducked into an isle. I knew exactly where I was, though. Isle 12, water and sports drinks. It was like the rows of isles were on some repeat. Cycling 1-24, only to jump back to 1 when you reached the end.

My lungs burned. My years on the high school track team have done me good, but for fuck’s sake, I had been running for so long. I pulled out my phone. 2:43am. What the actual fuck? I knew I had been running for a long time, but not that long. My phone flickered off. I took this as my key to get going again. I grabbed a water bottle from the shelf and drank some.

Dave can cry about it for all I care.

I still didn’t hear the footsteps so I settled on a brisk walk. I walked for hours. The next time I powered my phone on, it said 8:06am. It was still dark though.

Then I heard it. Coming fast from my right. Straight out of isle two, and crashing into me.

I don’t even know how to describe it, and even if I did, I don’t think I would. It was just too absolutely awful for my brain to process. It was the thing from the freezer. The thing with wet footsteps. I closed my eyes as I felt its slimy tentacles wrap around me. Then I slipped unconscious.

I awoke to someone shaking my shoulder.

“Uh… Miss?” The voice called. It was muffled. I opened my eyes and took in my surroundings. I was lying on a dusty floor, it was kind of cold, but not really. It was bright, and my head was pounding.

My eyes adjusted and I saw a man crouching down, his worried brown eyes locking onto mine.

“Are you okay?” He asked, tentatively.

Then I recognized him.

“You’re night crew! Oh thank the lord!” I said.

I looked past him and saw about five other people, who I recognized as also being night crew, standing at the opening of something.

“Uh… yeah. I’m night crew.” He said. “But really, are you alright?”

“I think so.” I said That’s when I realized who I was next to.

“Tanya!” I said.

She awoke slowly.

“W…What happened?” She murmured.

“I have no idea.” I said, rubbing my head.

“Where are we?” Tanya piped up, starting to remember all that had happened.

The man hesitated, “You’re in the freezer. The one we don’t use.”

I froze and looked at Tanya.

“What the hell happened to you guys?” He asked while helping me to my feet.

“I don’t know.” Tanya said as another night crew worker helped he to her feet.

“We came in and we found the door unlocked, all of the lights on, the freezer open and you three in it.” He said.

“Who else is here?” Tanya asked. “You said three, there were four of us.”

“Roger, he’s back there.” He pointed back to the way back of the freezer.

There Roger sat, knees to his chest, eyes wide and bloodshot. There were two night crew workers kneeling beside him, trying to get him to speak of stand up.

“Abby, where’s Abby?” Roger called out.

It seemed he finally snapped out of it.

“Who’s Abby?” The man asked.

“She was working with us when the lights went out.” I said frantically, not knowing how the hell I was supposed to explain all of this. “Can some of you go check the public women’s bathroom? That’s where I saw her last.”

Two women from the group standing outside the freezer nodded and walked away.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“11:31.” He said. “Look, the ambulances will be here in a few minutes.”

“What? Why did you ca-” I started.

“We found the three of you knocked out cold in a freezer that hasn’t been opened in almost eight months.” He stated. “Of course we called for some ambulances.”

I shrugged. He was right, and I would have done the same thing.

The paramedics arrived, and thankfully they didn’t ask too many questions. The two women who went to look for Abby said there was no one there, and they looked through the rest of the store too. All they found was a half drank water bottle in isle two. My water bottle, but I didn’t say anything.

I was brought to the hospital. First the emergency room, and then the psych ward. Great.

I told this whole story to the police and the doctors. They looked at me like I was crazy. Hell, maybe I was. But the police did confirm that Abby was missing, and I remembered the two women saying they found my water bottle.

Something happened, I knew it.

And then there was the time issue. The lights went out for nine hours, but I awoke, on the other side of the store about 40 minutes after the fact.

I was released earlier on today without much of a fuss. However when I was packing, the doctor I had told the story to came into my room and shut the door.

“Something did happen to you guys. And I wouldn’t have believed you, but all three of you told the same story, verbatim.” She said.

She shrugged and then left the room.

I was released into my parent’s custody. The police chalked it up to a robbery gone wrong and sent Tanya, Roger and I home.

Here I am writing this, still barely believing the very words I am typing out. This all happened a week ago, and yes I spent a week in the psych ward, but that’s besides the point. I return to work in three days. They told everyone at the store, including the owner that it was just a robbery gone wrong, resulting in the kidnapping of Abby. That’s the story I have to go with, I guess. I will update when I can. thank you for reading, and please respond with anything helpful that can help us get Abby back. I have been texting Tanya, and we’re gunna try and get her back. We’re closing again. Tanya, Roger and I. Plus some new girl that’s been replacing Abby. I’ll update after that shift, and if I don’t you can safely guess what has happened to me.

Thank you again, and stay safe everyone.