*“The gas station on Route 19 is open 24 hours, but nobody ever sees the clerk leave. The same man has been working behind the counter for as long as anyone remembers, and he looks exactly the same.

Last night, I pulled in around 2 a.m. The lights were buzzing, flickering in that way fluorescent bulbs do, but the inside was too quiet — no music, no radio, just silence. The clerk was standing perfectly still behind the counter, staring straight at me.

When I grabbed a drink from the cooler, the glass door fogged up from the inside, like something was breathing on it. I looked back — the clerk hadn’t moved. But when I checked the security mirror, the counter was empty. He wasn’t in the reflection at all.”*