Tales from the Gas Station: Volume One (Tales from the Gas Station, #1)

by Jack Townsend

“But you still want to maintain your title?”

“If I’m being completely honest, I can’t remember the last time I used somebody’s name in a conversation with them.

First, the doctor made it abundantly clear that his office was only big enough for one psychoanalyst, and because he had more training and experience than me, I should leave the heavy lifting to the professional. I assured him I would quit doing it out loud.

(Honestly, for a doctor with four medical degrees, he sure was easily threatened.)

continue these meetings, once per month, until one of us was no longer able to do so. The implication in the “one of us” part was quite clear, but I appr...

the doctor’s opinion of truth was less what I’d expect from a mental health provider and more what I’d expect from an emotionally abusive boyfriend with a philosophy diploma from an online college.

After I blew past my expiration date, Dr. V. was quick to remind me that I was not getting better, I was simply dying much slower than anticipated. But when you think about it, isn’t that all anyone can really ask for?

the gravity was acting up.

That was when he called me at the gas station to tell me he wouldn’t make it in to work that night. “Just so I understand, you stopped on the side of the road. At night. Out by the woods at the edge of town. To pick up a hitchhiker. In the rain?” Dr. V’s words rang in the back of my mind. Contrived. Strains credibility. “Yeah man. The dude looked like he needed help.” “You know you’re every slasher flick victim cliché rolled into one, right? If we were in a horror movie, you’d be long dead by now.”

“Uh, we kinda are, dude.” “Touché.”

“Well, if I accidently kill you, that’s probably my bad. If I accidently kill you twice, it’s a hell of a coincidence. But if I accidently kill you three times? Three times? Well, that’s on you. You gotta take some personal responsibility. You know what? I’m glad he’s dead! Going around, getting himself murdered all over the place.”

it’s a funny story. But not, like, traditionally funny.”

It was amazing. With the level of detail put into the pencil and paper drawing, it may as well have been a photograph. It was me. Sitting behind my counter. Reading a book.

In this picture, there was no background. No reference point for a location. It was another drawing of me, and only me, lying on the ground with my stomach ripped open. My own entrails were poured out, uncoiled in a pool of blood all around me. I closed the file, shut down the browser, and turned off the computer, thinking to myself, Well that’s enough internet for today.

Right then, the door to the supply closet swung open and Marlboro walked out wearing nothing but a bathrobe.

After a long, heavy silence, he came up to my counter and asked in a low voice, “Uh, has that guy been living here for the last few days?” It hadn’t occurred to me before that exact moment that the former cultist had never actually left.

“You don’t have that many friends, Jack. And I’m not going to be around forever.”

When I pulled myself up to the edge of the hole, I saw the shovel standing upright like a flagpole, the business end firmly lodged within the open chest wound of a still-twitching Kieffer. ​Oh crap.

me. ​I held my breath for a second and followed his gaze to the body resting at my feet. Then I noticed exactly what it was that he had dragged into the freezer. Or, rather, who it was. He had another dead Kieffer with him. Five. Kieffers.

man screaming “Leroy Jenkins,” which just about gave me a heart attack.

“You’re from around here, aren’t you?” “I’m afraid so,” I answered. “I can tell. You don’t exactly look like you moved here for college.”

“If I’m right, you boys have an anglerfish in them woods. It’s putting something out there to lure me in. Make me think I’m hearing something that I’m not. Then when I go looking for the thing I think I hear WHAM! That’s when it attacks.”

story for the principal about how I had severe irritable bowel syndrome and needed to spend all of my lunches and other breaks in the air-conditioned library near the bathrooms. It was the perfect crime, and I got away with it for an entire year.

There were four lawn gnomes standing in a line elbow to elbow, blocking the hall between myself and the exit.

“That’s right. If it’s not too much trouble, would you mind swinging by and rescuing me? Oh, and maybe bring the National Guard or something because I think Spencer might still be hanging around to make sure I’m dead and that guy is really good at fighting.” “I’m sorry, kid.” That was a weird thing for him to say. “It’s okay, Tom.” “No, I mean, I’m sorry I’m not going to be able to help. You should have put in a direct call to the sheriff’s station.” “Why?”

“Trust me, kid. I won’t be able to rescue you this time. The fact of the matter is, you’re probably not getting out of there in one piece. There’s a chance, sure, that maybe you’ll survive this ordeal. But I’ve already seen how the story ends. No matter how hard you try, the gas station will pull you back. You’re meant to die down here and there’s nothing you or I or anyone can do to stop it.”

He finished his monologue, and I waited long enough to be sure that he wasn’t going to say anything else before I said, “I guess I’m pretty much screwed.” “I’m afraid so.” “Why are you telling me all this?” “I’m not,” he answered matter-of-factly. “Your cell phone battery died a while ago, and you’ve been sitting alone in a hole talking to yourself.”

that bad news was on its way. “Look, kid, I don’t know how to tell you this. But Tom’s dead. That’s why I’m here. They picked me to take gas station duty after he- Um. After he left.”

Arnold left me alone to wallow in the fact that I had somehow outlived one of the few people I actually expected to attend my funeral, and moreover I hadn’t even gone to his. I spent the rest of the night trying to figure something out. If Tom was dead, then who the hell have I been talking to this entire time?

Now he looked a lot more in his proper element in jeans and a red and black checkered button-up with a two-day beard and a wicked smile from ear to ear. ​“Hey Jack,” said Spencer Middleton. “You miss me?”

I looked at Antonio, but he shrugged and said, “I don’t know no Marlboro. How many of them pills did you take today?” ​Had I been imagining Marlboro this entire time? Did I just Tyler Durden this guy into existence?

Antonio looked where I was pointing, then back at me. “What, you mean Jerry?”

Tony screamed, “Jack! The gun!” ​I pulled the weapon out of my pocket and chucked it as hard as I could. It smacked Spencer right in the face and he fell over. I was very proud for the two seconds it took me to realize what I had done wrong.

Remember that time when you were fifteen and you keyed the principal’s car?” ​“No.” ​“Really? Well shit, maybe that wasn’t you. Humans all look a lot alike.”

“Because, Jack, I can’t find any other way of talking to you. You don’t sleep, and you keep deleting all my emails. I wanted to tell you to stop killing my children! You’ve burned up so many of us, and what did we ever do to you, huh?” ​“The Kieffer plants.” ​“Yeah, just backups because that idiot is so clumsy. They’re harmless though. I’ve been trying to put some people in office so I can get a little political influence in this awful town.”

The warning signs were all over the place, and you guys should have seen it coming from a mile away. I mean, postmodern consequentialism mixed with a moral obligation to end suffering?” ​He waved one of his six arms in a jerk-off motion before continuing,

“Wait… We’re the monsters?” ​“I’m afraid so.” ​“I’m sorry.” ​“Good. That’s a start.”

“I’ll be honest with you, I have no clue what half of these things are. Your gas station is weird, and even I don’t know why. The hand plants and Kieffers were me. The smell, I’ll fess up. That’s me too. But all that other stuff, man, it gives me the heeby jeebies. Like, what’s up with that guy in the raincoat? You know that glowing dumpster worm thing the racoon ate? That was pretty crazy, huh?”

The planet is damned. There is something coming. A being of nearly inconceivable power and hunger has found our world amidst the eternal void and turned its senses our way. When it arrives, it will implement a planet-wide torment of such intensity that the booming echoes of agony reverberate backwards across time. As humans continue their daily toils, angels and demons gouge out their eyes at the unspeakable visions of what is to come.

“Because, as luck would have it, the big bad follows your blog.” “Seriously?” “Yeah. So do I. We higher beings spend a lot of time on the web.” Makes sense, I thought.

I could now see that this interaction hadn’t gone the way either of us had intended. To me, this whole episode was reminiscent of those pathetic pep rallies back in high school, where the teachers attempted to make students excited about an upcoming sports game through mandatory cheers and skits. The craziest thing to me was how it always seemed to work on the others. I always assumed there was something wrong with me. Probably the same reason why I wasn’t getting that Shia Labeouf moment that Arnold did after becoming part of the Dark God’s great plan.

took off my socks and tossed them onto the fire, and it burned them up and moaned all creepy like and then gave me ten dollars, but the joke was on me because they were dumb old Canadian dollars. I should have asked to be paid in advance. Stupid talking bushes.

mnemonic confabulation, or paramnesia.”

Do you have any idea how many times we’ve had some of the exact same conversations? I do. I’ve been keeping notes. Answer me this: How many times have you read your journal?”

Looking back, I still can’t believe that I somehow ended up outliving the doctor. Another one of life’s beautiful ironies, I guess.

My mind took me back to that moment when the egg-shaped woman with the ratty gray wig delivered an unsolicited prophecy. You are cursed to watch all of your friends, everyone you love, die before your very eyes.

Deputy O’Brien gave me the side-eye from her spot behind the steering wheel. “I thought you took the day off,” she said incredulously. ​“I did. Something came up.” Without another word, she flicked on the cruiser’s flashing lights and pulled a U-turn that left skid marks in the middle of the road. “Thanks,” I said.

She was Arnold’s replacement,

“18) I thought the gas station doesn’t sell fresh stuff. What about the cookie dough?”

dough at the gas station, and we sure as hell don’t bake fresh cookies here, so why do we have boxes of cookie dough sitting on a shelf in the walk-in cooler? And when did I even mention in the blog that we have cookie dough?