Some Scary nights

Chapter 1

I did the night shift at a gas station because I was strapped for cash and needed a second job I worked the night shift there for a few months it was around my second or third month that this guy started regularly coming in really late at night always around 2:00am. He was about six feet tall and he had long stringy hair. One day he asked me my name, I told him my name and he just kept saying Bob I like that as he'd laugh to himself.

He cracked open the drink he just bought and walked out of the store talking to himself. This was the night I was curious to see

if he had been drinking and driving. Every single time that he'd come to the store, I watched as he left and he walked out of sight off the gas station.

That didn’t make sense since he never once bought gas anytime he came in, and he'd always just buy alcohol. I'd seen him just about every night after that for a while he'd come in some nights visibly drunk and sometimes he'd just lean on one of the shelves for a while and not say anything. He'd always greet me with a hey Job anytime he'd come in. One night he was just leaning on a shelf drinking the tall boy he just bought not saying anything just staring at a wall. I asked him for his name. Finally, he looked at me for about five seconds and said Bob..now I always felt like Bob is a go-to fake name when you're lying about your name. I wondered if the first thing that came to mind for him was Bob because it rhymes with my name but I went with it. I said so Bob where do you work. He laughed so loud it actually startled me. He said he doesn't work ever since the government completely relieved him of his job.

I got the vibe he was wasted. Again he looked at me with an angry-looking face. But interestingly said, I like you Job, you seem like you know what you're doing. I didn't know what that meant but he walked out of the store right after that. I didn't see him again for a while. I'd say over a week passed for a person regular like him. Bob always gave me this creepy vibe. I figured he was usually drunk but something was obviously wrong in his personal life.

Well, one very stormy night, with fewer customers than usual, likely because of the storm, I heard the ding of the front door as someone entered and I swear before looking, I imagined it to be Bob and when I looked I was shocked to see it was actually him. But it was a much scarier version of Bob he was completely soaked. He wasn't wearing a rain jacket or using an umbrella, he was just in a dark shirt and jeans. His long hair was drenched and he was just standing by the door looking straight ahead at the wall. He looked like he was angry and yet his mind was elsewhere, like his thoughts were running. The way he stood there blankly staring at nothing, completely soaked was freaking me out.

I said Bob are you okay? He didn't turn his head or move, he stood still and said, I did something really bad. I asked what did you do? He then looked at me and said I need somewhere to hide. He then walked past me towards the little restroom hallway. He disappeared behind the wall and I heard one of the doors open and close. I was genuinely getting uncomfortable with Bob now, I didn't enjoy his presence whenever he was in the store and tonight something was extra off about him.

He seemed like a zombie and that ‘I did something really bad’ comment was incredibly creepy. Some time passed and Bob never came out of the bathroom. I assumed he passed out or puked, either way, I didn't want to intervene, and then the next thing I remember the lights to the place cut out and the store was completely dark. I was standing in a pitch-dark gas station during a major storm with an unhinged drunk man.

I used the flashlight from behind the counter to make my way towards the back of the store by the inventory storage and the panel board. The door to the back was in the same little hallway as the restrooms. As I walked by the two restroom doors, both of them were ajar and Bob wasn't in either of them. I went through the door to the back. I was planning on going straight to the panel board, but I stopped when I heard a slight dripping in the room somewhere and the squeaking of wet shoes. My heart sank into my stomach. I said, Bob, in a very weak and scared voice.

I heard squeaks right to my left. When I pointed my flashlight in that corner, there was Bob with his eyes opened wide and he lunged at me and started screaming I'm gonna kill you. I pushed him off me as he was clawing at my back. I ran back through the door to the front of the store. He didn't follow me. I grabbed my rain jacket and ran straight to my car. I sat in my car as I dialed 9-1-1 and spoke to an operator. I stayed on the line with her and it didn't take long for a couple of police officers to arrive and go inside with me.

Bob was still hiding in the back room huddled in a corner apparently like some rabid creature. Pupils were huge and I only noticed it when he was on something. They took him to the station after I told them that he lunged at me, threatened to kill me and stated that he did something really bad earlier.

I found out over a month later that this Bob Guy's real name was Martin. He had brutally beaten his ex-wife to death - it might have happened on that same night that he came into the gas station. Since then, I never wanted to work another night shift ever again.

Chapter 2

I've done a lot of night driving in my life, not for work or anything. My old friend and I would always just stay out till crazy hours when we were in our late teens and early 20s. I guess you could say we were the losers. We thought staying out till 5:am every weekend hanging at parks or in parking lots was cool. Looking back, it was a stupid waste of time but basically, for that reason, I've done my fair share of driving at off hours in the night and usually, that's when the drunks and crazy people are on the roads.

It was a weekend night, it had to be approaching four in the morning. I wanted to go home so I drove one of my friends home from the park we were hanging out at and before driving myself home I had to stop for gas.

I used to like getting gas at night because there would be no other cars in the way. I pulled into one of my usual gas stations not far from my parent's house. As I was walking to the building to pay, there was a short guy wearing a hood walking past me. He stopped in his tracks and stared me down as I walked past. I said ‘What’ as I kept walking. He said nothing, so I kept walking.

I went inside the building to pay the attendant for my gas. I also bought a lottery ticket while I was there. I came back outside and started to fill up. I looked around and as expected it was a ghost town at this hour. Once done I got back in the car and started driving home. Halfway home, I heard something behind me in the car. I looked in the rear-view mirror and there was someone in the rear seat looking back at me. I let out a scream so loud, I probably almost collapsed my lungs. I slammed on the brakes and screamed ‘Get out’. It was the dude from the gas station. I opened my doors and started screaming for help knowing, at least a couple of people would come out from their houses. Sure enough a couple houses' porch lights turned on and I saw some doors opening. The guy got out of my car and said I could have slit your throat. As some people came out of their houses, he started to run away down the street. I didn't chase after him. A couple of people came over to me and asked if I was all right and I told them how a stranger was in my backseat. At this time, the guy was out of sight and I wasn't about to start driving around after a crackhead. I thanked the people who came out and continued my drive home making sure I didn't see him anywhere the rest of the drive. That was the scariest experience of my life.

Chapter 3

This event happened in the mid-60s in the Atlanta area. At that time, I was about eight or nine years old. My father taught school in the suburb of Atlanta which was some distance from where our home was located. I went to the same school where he taught, so I rode with him every day. However, we had to get up very early each morning and head out before the sun was

Up. We always stopped several mornings each week to top off on gas at a small independent station. We were often the first car there shortly after the station opened. In those days everything was full service. There was a booth with an attendant who would come out and fill your tank, wash your windows, Etc.

He would always be carrying a lot of bills in his pocket and a device on his belt from which he counted out coins. Behind the pumps were tiny bathrooms. I would often use the bathroom on mornings when we stopped there as it was a fairly long drive.

One morning we again arrived before Dawn to find the station completely deserted. It was totally quiet other than the traffic sounds going by. There was no sign of an attendant either in the booth or anywhere else around the station. My father blew the car horn once then, again a few more times but there was no response. We wondered what might be the problem. My father first suggested that perhaps the attendant might be in the bathroom, but when he still did not appear, my father said that maybe the attendant had experienced car trouble and had not been able to make it to work on time. We continued to wait for several minutes and no other cars pulled in. I told my father I needed to use the bathroom and put my hand on the car door handle to get out. But he told me that we could not wait any longer and I could use the bathroom at the next station.

So we left still wondering what happened. A day or two later, my father was reading the local newspaper when I heard a loud exclamation from him. He excitedly told my mother and I about a small article which stated that the body of a gas station attendant had been discovered with multiple stabs stuffed into the men's bathroom of the station. It was the station we always went to. The article said the motive appeared to be robbery as all cash and coins were missing. Early in the morning the total amount of money was probably not a lot. The article gave no hint as to what amount was taken but either way that didn't stop the Killer. I've often wondered how I would have been affected at that young age if I had insisted on going to the bathroom at that station and had opened the door to discover the body of the murdered attendant. We never went to that gas station again.

Chapter 4

When I was 25, I was driving from North to South Texas, and due to my work schedule, I could only do this late at night. I was on Route 281 for much of the drive and at these late hours, it was an easy straight drive. I just had to keep myself awake so I had to keep making stops for coffee at random gas stations just to keep myself going. I think it was the third time I was starting to feel a little sleepy and on top of that I needed to fill up my tank as well. I pulled into the first gas station I could find on the desolate side roads. I can't remember what kind of gas station it was, maybe a Sunoco or Shell. There was one other car in the parking lot. I parked next to one of the pumps and went inside. There were two people in the shop. The cashier and then I noticed another guy pacing down the aisles. I went to the coffee maker and poured myself a cup. The guy who was pacing around came up to me and said ‘careful it's hot’ and then he left. It was a poor creepy unnecessary attempt at starting a conversation that I didn't bite. I didn't reply and I took the coffee to the cashier where I paid for it as well, as for the gas the guy came up behind me while I was paying and said I really like that top. I said Thank you just loud enough for him to hear.

He followed me up with ‘Where are you heading off to so late at night’. I was so annoyed at this point, I firmly asked him to leave me alone. The cashier was some 40-something-year-old Hispanic man and I wasn't sure how much English he understood or if he was even reading the situation that was happening in front of him. But he was also a smaller shorter man and it was doubtful if he was going to step in at all. The man behind me said calm down after I asked him to leave me alone. I left the shop without saying another word and went to my car. I heard the door open again a few seconds after I left the shop. I was next to my car now preparing to fill up the tank As the gas started pumping into my car, I heard his footsteps on the concrete over on the other side of the pumps, and they stopped. The footsteps stopped, I glanced over and I noticed him creepily standing on the other side of the pump I was using. He was just standing there watching me he wasn't filling up gas and there wasn't even a car there. I started considering grabbing my pepper spray. The guy said are you alone? When he asked that, the gravity of the situation escalated greatly. I replied, no my boyfriend is in the car. I opened the door and quickly grabbed the pepper spray from the center console. I grabbed it and held it at my side pretending to still be focused on pumping the gas.

The man was inching his way around the gas pump like he was coming around to my side. He said, I don't see anyone in the car.

I pulled out the pepper spray and aimed it up at the man and he laughed and backed away. He said he was just trying to make conversation and he was walking backward with his focus locked onto me still. Just about done pumping gas, when I felt and heard a clang. The gas stopped pumping and my tank was full. I had like six dollars worth of change. I had to go back inside to get it. The man was in between the shop and I had to make a choice. I made the decision to get my change. I had my arm up in the air still pointing the pepper spray can at him he continued to back away chuckling. When it was safe I turned my back to him and entered the shop and asked the cashier for change. I told the cashier that that man was making me really uncomfortable but it seemed like he didn't really understand what I was saying. Once I got my change, I looked out the glass door into the parking lot before leaving. I didn't see that man out there. I was scared to go out there what if he was hiding somewhere? I stepped outside in front of the shop. I didn't leave that little sidewalk. I just stayed there looking around. That man was gone out of sight which meant he was absolutely hiding. Eventually, a pickup truck pulled into the parking lot and pulled next to one of the pumps. A large man with a beard stepped out and I went over to him asking him for help. I asked him to check if there was a man hiding behind my car. He was confused but he did it for me, he got to the other side of my car and he yelled what are you doing and there went that creepy man hurrying away from behind my car. He started to run away into the darkness surrounding the gas station. I think that meant so much and he said in his thick southern accent to be careful out there.

I left that parking lot in a hurry and I continued the rest of my drive. That creepy man was a hundred percent waiting to pounce as soon as I unlocked my car doors and that's really disturbing to me.