I was there for three years. The station had an auto shop attached but was rarely needed at night, so I typically just dealt with people coming for gas.

Occasionally, I’d be asked to work on a car overnight from the day shift. One time, I found several bags of heroin leaking out from the driver seat. I was nervous the owners would know I saw it, so I stuffed the bags back in.

The station was out on a country road, so the types of customers I generally served were truckers or farmers or the random couple driving home from a date.

However there were the anomalies.

The car accidents. The drunk driver that killed a small family in the intersection out front. There was a vicious, blazing inferno coming out of that minivan. The dad made it out, but he was on fire and died in the middle of the road.

One time I served gas to someone who was being chased by the police. Of course, I didn’t know that at the time. I just thought the driver was in a hurry.

I was robbed at gunpoint, twice. It was the same two ski-masked guys too. They just took turns speaking between the two incidents.

Then there was the time an old guy drove up, got out of his car, and died of a heart attack two steps later.

Those incidents were normal. Or at least understandable. Explainable.

But there was one night something unexplainable happened.

It was shortly after 3am. Headlights drove in carrying a 1966 Pontiac Bonneville two-door coupe. A thin trail of smoke was coming from under the hood.

The inside of the windows were all fogged up, so I couldn’t really see the interior of the car or the occupants.

The car drove past the gas station and right into the auto shop. The lights weren’t even on inside the shop, but the headlights lit it up.

I went to greet the driver and flipped on the overhead lights of the shop. But they came on weak and dim.

The driver side door opened as I approached and I was immediately hit with a stench of old, damp cloth and dust.

A middle-aged man got out uneasily, like his knees were made of twigs. He wore one of those black quaker hats with dark hair spiking from under it and a greying goatee. The man’s face was covered in lines and wrinkles and his eyes sunk back into his head.

He looked like he hadn’t slept in days.

“Check the oil. Check the engine,” he choked out and walked past me, fumbling out an old box of matches.

The passenger door closed and a middle-aged woman stood there. She had thick, dark hair that looked like it was greased through with gel and matted to her head. An uneven set of bangs cut across her forehead.

The woman carried the same, sunken in eyes as the man. But her face was covered in days old make-up. Rosy cheeks, blue eyeliner, red lipstick. Even through the smearing, you could tell it was applied with heavy exaggeration.

Then the woman smiled at me. I wish she hadn’t. Her teeth were dirty orange and speckled with black dots. Her gums were dark gray.

I noticed she only had the front six teeth on her upper and lower jaws. She didn’t appear to have any molars. Which I shouldn’t know, but she couldn’t stop smiling to reveal that.

The moment the woman saw me, her lips had stretched into a wide-mouthed grin that curved downward like a catfish. It was a strange and frightening smile. Like it was pulled and stretched over a screaming face.

The woman began speaking to me, but she spoke so softly I couldn’t hear her. I kept leaning forward, trying to get a better ear. But the closer I got, the further her voice sounded.

Then I realized we were inches from each other’s faces. Her breath was rancid as she spoke. And I finally heard what she was saying.

“Don’t go in the car.”

The woman pulled back and I saw the scream behind the smile in her eyes.

She was terrified.

“Joan.”

The driver was already outside the auto shop, lighting up a dirty looking home-rolled cigarette.

The woman, Joan, followed him. She looked back, continuing to smile, but her eyes told a story of desperation and horror.

They gave me chills and I was happy the two were going to wait outside. I watched the strange couple walk down to the edge of the gas station where it made up the corner of a quiet, country intersection.

I turned to the car, not really sure what to do. After I couldn’t get under the hood, I figured there was a release latch under the steering wheel.

I went to the driver side door and saw the window was down. I leaned in through the window and searched and fumbled until I found the latch. I flicked it open and saw the hood pop up.

As I was pulling myself out, a thought struck me - the window was up when the man drove in. It was up when he walked off. How did it get down?

Then my eyes caught the rearview mirror. And what was in the backseat.

There was a little boy staring at me. He sat calmly in the middle seat with his seatbelt still on.

He had a strange, swirling facial scar that reminded me of a boy I went to grade school with named Johnny Walkens. He’d been attacked by a dog when he was little and large portions of his face were horrendously scarred.

That’s what this boy looked like. And he had something that looked like mud and dirt smeared around his mouth and chin. The same smears were on his hands and wrists.

The boy wore old, dirty overalls and a flannel shirt underneath. His eyes were locked on me. They carried an accusatory glare, like he was catching me stealing.

I quickly blurted out, “Hey buddy, just checking out the engine, then we’ll get you and your parents on their way.”

The boy stared back, his brow furrowed down at the centre, angrily.

“They’re not my parents,” he croaked out.

Then he started to make a strange sound.

I couldn’t tell what it was at first, but then it became clear. The boy was laughing in his own, odd way. It was like his breath was hitching up repeatedly during the inhale.

I didn’t know what to do or say, so I pulled myself out of the window and made my way to the hood.

I looked out and saw Joan and the man were still at the corner, smoking and arguing.

I popped the hood up and was greeted with a cloud of smoke. I figured it was a motor oil spill or leak at first.

Then I stared down at the engine and I had no idea what to make of it. It looked foreign but also homemade. It was all connected and had metal plates fastened around it, protecting parts of the wiring and cables so it was next to impossible to see what was wrong.

I honestly didn’t know what the hell I was looking at. But I managed to find what looked like a small handle for a dipstick, and I twisted and pulled it out.

It was for the oil. I cleaned it, put it back in and pulled it to inspect. Basically dry. The little oil at the end felt gritty. It needed a change.

The car was parked over our lift, so I didn’t have to get in to move it. But I couldn’t leave the kid in there. He had to get out. Safety precautions and all.

I went to the driver side window, but the window was up again.

I tried to open the door, but it was locked. I went over to the passenger side and found it locked too. I peered in through the dirty windows to try to signal to the boy to open the door…

But the backseat was empty.

The car was empty.

He was gone.

The only explanation I could come up with was that the backseats of the car pulled down and allowed access to the trunk.

So I checked the trunk, but it was also locked. I knocked on it, trying to get the boy’s attention if he was inside. But nothing came back.

I looked outside but couldn’t see Joan or the man.

I was confused and nervous and all I could think to do was explain that our lift wasn’t working, so they’d need to get their oil changed at another shop in the next few days.

Then I’d send them on their way.

A loud clunk made me jump. On the other side of the garage, a loose wrench was on the ground. I walked over to it and picked it up. It had a small, child-sized muddy handprint on it.

And suddenly, that odd laugh echoed out from somewhere in the garage.

I raised the wrench to swing, but there was nothing to swing at.

The loud, metal rattling of the front, retracting door slamming shut made me yell.

I went over to inspect the now shut door, but as I did, the retracting metal doors at the back slammed shut as well.

At this point I figured the kid was messing with me, so I called out to him, telling him playtime was over and to come on out.

Then the power went out.

The garage was completely black. Not a single window could be seen.

I tried to open the front metal gate, but it wouldn’t budge. Like it was welded shut.

More metal tools clanged against the ground. One slammed against the metal door, right beside my head. And another.

The boy’s hitched laughter croaked out from somewhere in the dark of the shop.

I couldn’t see anything, but knew the layout of the garage inside out and backwards. There was a flashlight on the far end of the wall to my right. There were shelves along the wall and a wide workbench I could follow.

I moved along the metal door to the wall and found the edge of the bench.

The boy’s laughter got louder, echoing through the garage. It stopped sounding human though. It was more hyena-like.

And the source of the laughter was getting closer to me. With it, I felt a hot, rotten breath assaulting my nostrils. It followed me along the bench and towards the end of the wall.

Through laughing, the boy quietly repeated, “I’m gonna find ya, I’m gonna find ya.”

My foot hit what felt like a ratchet wrench, which loudly skittered across the metal grating on the floor.

“Was that you,” the boy squealed out.

Realizing I still had the wrench in my hands I first picked up, I threw it across the garage, hoping to hit the back wall and cause a distraction.

It left my hand… but it never landed.

“There you are,” the voice called out through laughs.

Something shuffled behind me. I hit the end of the bench and reached up, knocking over multiple tools and causing a series of loud crashes.

But I didn’t care. I felt the flashlight grip and turned it on, spinning and pointing the light behind me.

I wished I hadn’t.

The boy was two feet from me. I only saw his face for a moment, but that was enough.

The boy’s facial scar had unravelled, like layers of extra skin in some strange face scarf covering. Only the fleshy layers were actually attached to him, and contained rows of needle-like teeth on the inside.

When the skin flap opened, it tripled the original diameter of his mouth.

I screamed and fell backward.

I expected to hit the ground and immediately have the boy’s frightening mouth biting down on my face or neck.

I hit the pavement outside the garage instead. The lights of the gas station poured over me.

I looked back into the garage from my back. The lights were on. The metal door was open. The Bonneville was still and silent. Windows closed and clear.

Footsteps approached from behind me. I scrambled up and turned to see Joan and the man had returned. He flicked his cigarette butt and approached me and mumbled-

“How much?”

I couldn’t speak. My lower jaw moved but all I could stammer out was, “don’t worry about it.”

The man shrugged and walked back to the car.

I turned and found Joan there, staring up at me.

She was whispering something quickly and repeatedly. I leaned in and heard it clearly.

“You shoulda listened, you shoulda listened, you shoulda listened.”

The man called out from the car, snapping Joan back to him.

Still smiling, Joan shook her head at me, tears rolling down her cheeks in dark smears. She walked back to the car and got in.

The Bonneville started up and drove past me. The windows were no longer blurred by fog, so I could see inside clearly.

I saw the man staring straight ahead. Joan, sitting passenger beside him, smiled out at me with worried eyes.

Then I saw the backseat.

It was empty.

The boy was gone.

I was so afraid, I locked the garage and the gas station, checked my car, then got in and drove for an hour before stopping.

I called my boss and told him I was violently ill and had to lock up early. He was less than impressed, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t go back there.

And I didn’t. I gave my two weeks and called in sick for each shift. I never went back to the garage and try to avoid gas stations at night now.

But it’s not just that. Now, whenever I hear someone laugh, I hear the boy’s laugh. That same odd upward hitch. No matter the person, every giggle or cackle comes out the same. And sometimes it turns into that higher-pitched hyena cackle.

It’s been happening more and more. It feels like one of those flu’s that start slow and take their time weakening your immune system before levelling you.

Then tonight happened.

I came home and there was a small, muddy handprint on the door handle of my apartment.

There was one on the inside too.