Work Text:
It's late. Joel's on his second can of coffee, watching the clouds drift lazily through the windows of the gas station convenience store. Gun under the counter, loaded. Nothing else outside, because it's in the middle of a stupid highway. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He gets paid twelve dollars an hour, so it's not even worth it. Especially not with—
The door jingles merrily as it's pushed open. Joel groans, plasters on his best smile. His manager keeps telling him it'll scare off most people, which is good. No one should be in this bloody place at — Joel glances at the clock — one in the morning.
It's a normal guy. Black hoodie, bags under his eyes, two large bottles of Mountain Dew that he dumps on the counter. "Pump three," he mumbles, and Joel glances at the monitor. There's a tiny beaten-up car parked there, crooked.
"Right," Joel says, rings him up. The guy pays with a card he takes twelve seconds to fish out a ratty wallet, and then he's left again. Joel watches as he pulls out, nearly crashes backwards into pump two, and putters back onto the highway.
Joel checks the time. One twenty-five. He sighs, long and heavy, and grabs a pretzel from the shelf. It's salted caramel, which gets stuck between his teeth no matter how much or fast he chews. Whatever. He scarfs the whole thing down. Scans the empty packet, pays the $4.20 with change from the tip jar.
Joel's picking out the last of the caramel from his teeth when the door chimes again. He looks up, only remembering to take his finger out his mouth and wipe it off at the last moment. The person's not looking his way, anyway.
Joel looks out the window. No car in sight, except his own in the parking lot. Looks back to the customer, who has put down a singular Hot Wheels car on the counter. They're looking at him blankly. They have four arms.
"We have a buy one, get three free offer for those, you know," Joel says, without missing a beat.
The 'customer' turns. Joel grabs the gun and shoots it in the head.
It crumples to the ground, black sludge pooling on the floor from the hole in its head. Ew. It twitches once, then goes still.
Joel grabs the mop, a bottle of bleach, and a large garbage bag.
By the time he's done cleaning up the body and mopping the floor thrice, it's two am. He triple-ties the garbage bag, then heads outside to toss it in the dumpster.
It's routine, by now. Joel's manager doesn't say anything about it, except 'keep it up' and 'you're lasting longer than most people would' and, most of the time, 'can you please stop eating on the job?'. Not even a bonus for ridding the world (or at least this side of the highway) of the stupid… anomalies. Or a raise! Seriously?
Two fifteen. A woman in a bun comes in, pays for half-tank in cash. A family of four, the two kids running about and slipping on the bleach-slick floor, giggling all the while. A biker who gets four scratch cards and no fuel, and wins absolutely nothing.
It's three when someone else finally comes in. Another guy in a hoodie — seriously , are these people not dying in this heat? Joel's cranked the AC all the way up and his clothes are still soaked with sweat — flipping through magazines. Joel glances at the monitor: a grey car, all the way at pump eight. Okay. That's fine.
What isn't fine, though, is the… doppelganger of the guy? Standing right outside the door, staring straight into the camera.
Joel looks up. The guy is still browsing. No one outside.
On the monitor, the doppelganger isn't moving. Its eyes are wide and very, very red.
A loud slam, and Joel flinches a little as the guy drops five magazines onto the counter. "Pump eight, please," he says, in this low, raspy voice. Is it a German accent? Joel can't quite tell.
He scans the magazines. Four about automobiles, and one with some football club on the cover. Normal guy stuff.
"Do you have a twin?" Joel asks, as he adds up everything.
The guy freezes, just for a moment, and it's evidence enough that Joel reaches for the gun and shoots it point-blank.
It vanishes into a puff of smoke, and for all of two seconds Joel is absurdly grateful for the fact that this anomaly doesn't have a body to clean, before his gaze drifts back to the monitor and he groans.
The doppelganger's body is splayed out on the concrete, unmoving, regular red blood seeping into the floor. The grey car is gone.
Joel grabs the mop.
It takes him half an hour after disposing of the body to get the blood off, because it keeps dissolving anything that comes into contact with it. Joel gets through a mop and two bottles of bleach before he gives up and dumps an entire roll of toilet paper on the puddle. It dissolves as well, so Joel makes the decision to tell anyone who asked that it was spilled, expired Gatorade.
The good news is: the blood puddle dissolves some kid (or, like, a really short person) with six eyes as it tries to get inside. The bad news is: the anomaly-removing blood puddle is now gone, so Joel has to actually pay attention for the next three hours. Bummer.
The same biker comes back again, fills quarter-tank and buys three scratch cards. They win nothing, again, but Joel feels bad, so he gives them a free bar of chocolate.
Someone comes in right when the biker's pulling out of the station. A woman in heels and a long, flowy dress. She walks up to the counter — Joel glances at the pumps outside: a fancy blue Toyota — and says, in a voice thag would better fit a five-year-old boy, "Can I get some gum along with this?"
Joel mutely points towards the gum stocked at the counter, and the woman leans down to examine them. His mind is racing. Okay, I can't just judge someone based on how they sound. This person might be, like, trans. I can't shoot a trans person! This might just be a regular guy— um, girl. Woman. Do trans people sound like children??
"I'll take this one," the woman says, and she smiles wide. Inside her mouth, there are many, many rows of teeth, circling down her throat.
Joel shoots it.
He is so, so grateful for the fact that this body turns to dust instead of doing actual body things and dying, because he doesn't have to clean anything up now! It's great.
The rest of his shift is, mercifully, uneventful. He falls asleep at the counter and is only woken up by a customer screaming at him for sleeping on the job. He eats another pretzel — the biker tipped really well for a guy constantly losing twenty bucks every time they entered the store. He counts the seconds until he can clock out.
Seven o'clock hits, and Joel immediately starts packing his stuff. His coworker comes in, nods to him, and Joel all but hightails it out of there. He gets in the car, slams the door, and rests his head on the steering wheel.
…Wait.
He peeks out the window. His coworker is always, consistently late. Like, fifteen minutes past seven late. What's the deal now?
Through the glass, his coworker is walking through the shelves, hands in pockets. They don't have a shadow.
Fuck.
No. This is fine. This is absolutely not Joel's problem. His shift is over. He's going to quit this stupid job tomorrow; nevermind the fact that he says this every day.
Joel starts the car, takes a long, slow breath, and speeds off.