AMERICAN DREADLINE
S01E03: The Last Customer of the Night
This is American Dreadline.
One voice.
One nightmare.
One place you’ll never see the same again.
This one’s called: The Last Customer of the Night.
You ever deal with a customer so creepy your brain goes,
“Yeah… no. We’re closing early.”
The kind with that half-smile.
You know, the kind that makes your whole body notice before your brain does.
The kind you don’t even really see at first…
but you can feel them close.
Good.
Because this story?
This is why I quit the night shift at Pump & Go.
And if something walks into your store…
and you can hear it…
but you can’t see it…
don’t do what I did.
Trust me.
Don’t look at the screens.
Some things notice when you do.
So. Picture this.
It’s 12:47 a.m.
Tuesday, basically Monday with attitude.
I’m dead tired.
The burrito warmer’s struggling.
The hot dog roller looks like it’s about to quit.
I’m at the register, zoning out like usual…
doom-scrolling…
wondering whether me or the slushie machine’s gonna give up first.
The place was called Pump & Go.
Not the real name.
Doesn’t matter.
If you’ve ever stopped at a gas station at one in the morning for gas, caffeine, bad coffee, or a hot dog that looked legally tired, you know the kind of place.
Small store.
Too much glass.
One register.
One coffee island.
One sad roller grill turning meat tubes into regret.
Dead shift.
No customers.
Road quiet.
Just me, the fluorescent hum, and that special late-night exhaustion where your body’s still upright but your judgment already went home.
That part matters.
Because the tired version of you makes different decisions than the daytime version.
The store had five security cameras.
Front door.
Register.
Candy aisle.
Chips.
Drink coolers.
Grainy.
Cheap.
Always a little delayed, like the store was running behind on reality.
And when you work alone, those screens start to feel like backup.
They let you check blind spots without leaving the counter.
Let you see if somebody came in while your head was down.
Let you keep distance between yourself and whatever weirdness the night shift drags in.
They made me feel less alone.
They also made me feel in control.
I trusted them more than I should’ve.
Then the bell over the front door chimed.
DING.
I froze.
Because that bell only rings when someone physically walks in.
No wind sensor. No motion trigger.
Door opens, bell rings.
That’s the deal.
I look up.
Nobody.
Just the empty entryway.
Door shut.
Lights buzzing like they know something I don’t.
But the air feels… different.
Like it made room for someone.
I do what customer service has trained me to do.
“Hey, you need something?”
I get nothing.
Then I hear footsteps.
Soft. Slow.
Moving toward the snack aisle.
Except there’s nobody there.
Just me and six hundred bags of chips silently judging my life choices.
I try humor. Because that’s what you do when your brain runs out of options.
“Hey, if you’re invisible… please don’t shoplift. I can’t explain that paperwork.”
Still nothing.
So I do the stupid thing.
I check the monitor.
Camera 3, chips aisle.
There’s a shape.
Not a person.
A shape.
Tall.
Too thin.
Neck bent like it’s listening.
Facing the lens.
Still.
I look up at the real aisle.
Empty.
Back to the monitor.
The shape is closer.
That should’ve been enough.
It wasn’t.
Look, I’ve dealt with weirdos.
Drunks.
Tweakers.
A guy who tried to return beef jerky because it tasted “sus.”
That was normal weird.
But nothing prepares you for a customer who exists only in 480p.
Now the shape is in Camera 2.
Candy aisle.
Closer.
Head tilting in that slow, wrong way,
like a dog trying to understand math.
I stand there behind the counter, staring at the monitor like it’s gonna blink first.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Okay. So you’re… a camera thing.”
Because if I name it, maybe it becomes manageable.
Like calling a storm Larry.
I try talking to it again. Quiet. Stupid. Reflexive.
“Hey… big guy. If you need help… just… pick a candy bar.”
It doesn’t pick anything.
Instead…
I hear breathing.
Behind me.
Right up against my ear.
Not loud. Not dramatic.
Just close.
I spin around.
Nothing.
Just humming lights.
Burnt coffee smell.
Lottery display.
And my fight-or-flight votes flight. Unanimously.
I look back at the monitor.
One arm lifts.
Reaching toward the camera.
Like it’s testing the glass between us.
Static crawls along the edges of the screen.
The image warps.
And I realize something that hits me colder than fear:
the thing isn’t using the cameras to see the store.
It’s using them to find me.
Then the bell chimes again.
DING.
I snap to Camera 1.
Front door.
The shape is there now, pressed against the glass.
Too tall for the frame.
Back warped.
Hands splayed out like it’s measuring the doorway.
But the real front door,
the one ten feet from me,
was still closed.
Nobody there.
And through the tinny little speaker on the monitor, it whispers:
“Let me in.”
That’s when I understood something worse.
It wasn’t outside.
It was learning how close I’d let it get before I believed what the screens were telling me.
I back away from the counter.
Phone out.
911 on the screen.
No idea what I’d even say.
“Hi, yeah, emergency. We’ve got a… camera customer.”
Before I can hit dial…
all monitors go black.
No fade.
No flicker.
Just dead.
For one stupid second, I actually feel relief.
Then…
static.
Then…
every screen comes back on.
But now every camera shows the same angle.
The register.
My aisle.
My back.
Like there’s a camera behind me that shouldn’t exist.
And in the feed…
just over my shoulder…
the shape rises into frame.
Not stepping.
Unfolding.
Bent.
Arms too long.
Head twitching.
I don’t look back.
I don’t breathe.
I don’t blink.
But in the footage…
its arm lifts.
And I feel it.
Fingers.
Light.
Cold.
Brushing the back of my shirt like a test.
That’s it.
Nope.
I run.
Out the side door.
Across the lot.
My shoes slip on oil-dark asphalt and my keys go flying under my car like the universe is helping the monster.
I crouch behind the bumper, chest heaving, trying to make myself small.
When I risk a look back…
the store windows are dark.
Still.
Dead quiet.
For half a second, I think: maybe it can’t leave the cameras.
Then my phone buzzes.
Once.
Screen lights up.
PUMP & GO, CAMERA 3 (LIVE)
I do not have notifications turned on for that.
I tap it.
The feed opens.
And it’s not the chips aisle.
It’s the parking lot.
Right where I’m crouched.
Shot from behind.
And just over my shoulder in the feed…
inches from me…
the shape is standing there.
Bent.
Neck crooked.
Hands dragging the pavement.
Head tipped like it’s listening to my heartbeat.
I whip around.
Nothing.
I look back at the phone.
The shape lifts one long, crooked arm…
…and waves.
Slow.
Just for me.
I throw the phone so hard it cracks on the asphalt.
That’s the detail I always come back to.
Not that it followed me outside.
That by then, it didn’t need to.
I’d already let it learn how I looked when I was afraid.
I quit the next morning.
Manager asked why.
I said, “Something came in last night that wasn’t a customer, and I’m not about to die for minimum wage.”
He didn’t ask me to explain.
He didn’t laugh.
To tell you the truth,
he looked at me like someone who knew exactly what I meant.
That bothered me almost as much as the thing itself.
Because it meant I probably wasn’t the first person who left without a normal explanation.
I don’t work nights anymore.
I don’t work anywhere with live security feeds I’m expected to monitor alone.
And I don’t use surveillance screens the way I used to.
That’s the wound.
Not just fear.
Distrust.
I used to think if I could see something, I had a better shot at controlling it.
Now I know that isn’t always true.
Sometimes looking is participation.
Sometimes the screen is not distance.
Sometimes the screen is the invitation.
Every now and then I pass that old Pump & Go late at night.
Store still there.
Lights still on.
Cheap security glow flickering in the front glass.
I never stop.
And I never let myself look too long.
Because the worst part wasn’t the shape.
It wasn’t the whisper.
It wasn’t even seeing myself on that parking-lot feed.
It was realizing how easy it was to teach the thing where I was.
So here’s my rule now.
If a place feels wrong, I leave before I need proof.
I don’t wait for confirmation.
I don’t check one more angle.
I don’t trust the monitor more than the room.
And if something ever walks in somewhere I’m working,
and I can hear it,
but the cameras seem more aware of it than I am,
I’m gone.
You can keep the register.
You can keep the coffee.
You can keep every last scratch-off ticket in the building.
Because I learned something on that shift that I’ve never been able to unlearn:
Some things don’t need you to open the door.
They just need you to keep looking long enough to teach them where you are.
You’ve been listening to American Dreadline.
If this one got under your skin… follow and leave a rating.
Keeps the lights on around here.
And trust me,
nothing good comes from the dark.
© 2026 Jason Cooper. All rights reserved.
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