Part 15 – Everything in its Place

Bradley

Bradley loved a clear open road. He’d grown up in Seattle. Every morning was clogged roads, no matter how early he got up. Being a morning person meant nothing. He was on the asphalt with everyone else, bear-eyed, comatose or otherwise. The island suited a morning person like him, someone who got up with purpose, a plan, and drive. Even if the roads would be empty regardless. 

By the time he arrived at the convenience store, he’d mostly finished is large, French vanilla coffee, instant and piping hot in his Patriot’s travel mug. He’d long since finished his blueberry muffin, a treat he always told himself was healthy. It had berries in it after all.  

He swung his short legs out the side of his metallic green supercab truck and used the handy sidestep to descend to the pea gravel below. 

Another day, another view of the building he’d built with all that purpose that stirred in him every morning. Sure, when Sophie had approached him with idea, he didn’t see the point of such an elaborate store, but even with caveats, he had built it into a thriving business. Even for truck stops, it was a big operation and turned over far more money than most knew. Mostly the pumps though – those twelve nozzles fed countless transport vehicles and single-handedly kept this operation in the black. The store itself just about paid for itself, but he’d have scaled it back if he had his way. Some day, hopefully soon, when he would pitch the creation of a second gas station, he’d scale back on a bit of the frivolity. 

The place hadn’t burned down. That much was clear as he approached, but that didn’t mean everything was well. Kat seemed like a good kid, but she was a kid nonetheless. One thing he hated about running this sort of business was how few adults he worked with. Not that Douglas was any better.  

“He probably worse,” Bradley mumbled to himself. 

At least all those kids had an excuse to be driven by hormones. 

He opened the door, and the lingering smell of fresh cooked pizza hit him before the familiar electronic chime. 

Maybe there was space in the future store for food, after all. 

As Bradley pondered whether a second pizza place or a burger joint would be better, he was greeted by Kat. 

“Morning Bradley!” 

He looked at her, somehow the spitting imagine of Soph at that age and couldn’t help but smile. Those were good years. 

“Morning, Kat. I see you two didn’t burn the place down. Must have been a good shift.” 

Kat wiped her bangs from her face. 

“I figured I’d leave that for after my probation period.” 

“It’s a gas station, there is no probation period,” Bradley said, turning to inspect the store. “Where’s Tom?” 

“Just taking a bag of garbage to the dumpster.” 

“Good, good,” Bradley said, distracted by the hotdog spinner. A few of them were on the cusp of desiccation. He’d get rid of them, but would anyone notice if he ate them? He’d only had a muffin. 

Too many witnesses. He instead filled his mug with hot water and tossed in a new packet of French vanilla along with a couple packets of sugar. He closed up the thermos and started shaking. 

“So, how was the night?” he asked, turning back to Kat who seemed to be busying herself with restocking candy bars. 

“Pretty quiet,” her eyes went a bit wide before she added, “but we did have a few people in. A couple for road snacks and another whose card didn’t work at the pumps.” 

Bradly continued shaking his mug; he hated clumps in his drink. 

“Don’t worry about it, Kat. It usually isn’t busy,” he said, walking up to the counter. “We have night staff because we have to, not because it’s profitable.”  

He smiled as he took a big swig of coffee. A clump of power burst in his mouth and coated his throat is granules of sugar and chemicals. Bradley coughed but did his best to tough through it. He took another big swig and he was mostly in the clear.  

Tom entered from the back. 

“Good morning, Brad.” 

Bradley waved and cleared his throat. 

“Anything I should know about?”  

Tom shrugged.  

“Ketchup chips are a bit low.” 

“We don’t get a lot of tourists this time of year, so we don’t have to worry about Canadian snacks…I’ll wait for the main order to restock them. Anything else?” 

“Raccoons got into the dumpster again.” 

How the fuck does this keep happening!? 

“Was it locked?” Bradley asked calmly.  

He pushed down the rage. Sophie had given him hell for the last dumpster-based outburst. 

“I just saw it myself.” 

“Then how did they get in?” Bradly asked, words like a sigh. 

“I don’t know,” Tom said, gormless as always. “When I opened it, the bags inside were shredded.” 

Bradley tilted his head back and forth, coffee sloshing in his mouth before swallowing. 

“Well, if all the mess is inside, it doesn’t matter. It’ll get picked up all the same.”  

He paused to take another long swing of sugar and water.  

“I’ve got a bit of work to do on the computer. I’ll let you two get back to work. Kat, I’ll be back out before you clock out. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.” 

“Thank you,” she said, glancing away as she spoke. 

They looked similar but she wasn’t fierce like Soph. Even at that age, her presence had been magnetic. Kat was a good kid, but no one would ever work for her.  

No one would ever worship her. 

Bradley made his way to the back office and closed the door behind him. ‘Office work’ was a great catchall – no one ever asked if it was accounting, marketing, staffing, etc. More often than not, it was a quiet place to listen to music. But that morning, with a new staff member on the floor, it was time for surveillance. 

He opened up the security footage and ran the evening’s recordings of both store cameras. There were two inside the store – one facing the cash register and one facing the pizza place. There was also one outside, pointed at the back entrance. 

He told all the staff that recordings were held by the security company and only accessible by request. But how else would he know when kids were stealing stock over night? How else would he know if someone was smoking pot in the storage area? He couldn’t rely on the fire alarms to alert him. After the first time, they must have started pulling the batteries out of something… 

He’d check that camera next and then close it all down. He knew checking the camera on the back entrance was pointless. He’d never see those racoons.  

Watching as Kat and Tom moved back an forth across the floor, accelerated to a near blur by fast forward, he started to wonder what he was looking for. Kat was a good kid. The worst he’d find is the two of them making out or something… 

A tingle went up his spine and he paused the recording. It felt too creepy, even for him. He leaned back in his office chair and wondered if any of this was necessary. He could walk the floor, check the back room, then review the security tapes if something was amiss.  

He looked at the screen. Kat and Tom were turned toward each other clearly mid-conversation, frozen in a moment in time. Broad smiles were etched across their young faces. 

Bradley sighed. Maybe Soph was right. Perhaps he was too hard on them. 

Kat was a good kid. Frozen like that, low fi and greyscale, it could have been her. But there was too much separating them. She was almost Sophie, but the spark that made her aunt stand out was missing. 

Bradley had never met Soph’s sister, but he doubted it was the genetics. Sophie stood out, even in her family. 

As Bradley pondered nature versus nurture, he absently scanned the screen. The quality was surprisingly low with aberrations everywhere. He pulled open the settings and made some adjustments. Still rough, but…he slid a few more sliders and… there was something there.   

He was wrong. It wasn’t the quality and it wasn’t a smudge or a figment of his paranoid imagination. 

Leaning into the screen, he stared at the window just outside the pizza stack.  

There was a shadow in it. 

He moved the frames forward, then back. It wasn’t moving. Had he gotten excited over nothing? Maybe it was just a reflection after all. 

He pulled the timeline back and forth, skipping by hours at a time.  

It was moving. Slowly, inhumanly persistent and, more specifically, it was following them around the store.  

Whatever it was. It was solid. Nearly motionless. And it was watching them all night. 

Bradley considered his options. He could send it to Sophie, more pressingly, he could warn the poor kid in the other room.  

None of this is her fault. She didn’t ask for this. 

Bradley rubbed his twitching eye.  

If he was ever going to be a hero… it won’t be today. 

He emailed the file to himself, then erased it.