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

by Jack Townsend

“He’s the one who comes in three times a day. You know, the one we hired off of that prison work relief thing last year.”

chain. He looked at the crucifix in his hand, sighed, and pushed his thumb into the center of it. ​The cross emitted a loud, electronic Beeeeeep. Before I could say “What the fudge was that?” the store phone started ringing.

“Hey, remember that time you forgot me in the cooler and I stayed in here for like three hours?”

My search for weapons ended the moment I saw the box on the top shelf labeled “Cookie Dough.”

thought this whole thing was a big misunderstanding because the contents of the box actually looked like cookie dough. But only for a second. And then I recognized the material inside. A month earlier, I would have had no idea that the putty-like substance in this box was in fact a type of highly potent plastic explosive.

“Jack, you don’t have fatal familial insomnia.”

“None of that’s real. You’re not sick. Just stupid. And I don’t want to do this; I swear. I wanted to bring you on with us. Make you part of the team. But there’s so much at stake that the powers that be can’t take any risks. I almost had them convinced to let me show you what’s really going on, but then you willingly engaged with the entity, and now they think you’re compromised. I was so close to changing their minds, but you just had to go and write about it in your damned blog!” “Wait. You read my blog?”

This was it. I had only a moment. A split second. I needed a quick plan if I was going to get out of this. But instead of a plan, my brain came up with something a bit less useful. A question. A simple question. Why?

You’re totally creepy for creepiness’ sake, aren’t you? You just float around out here, being creepy, completely unconnected to anything else. You know what, dude? I’m not impressed. You’re a pointless gimmick. You add nothing to the story! You’re a punchline in search of a joke. Get outta here. You’re irrelevant. Come back when you actually have a reason to be here!”

“That’s stupid!” I yelled. “You look absolutely ridiculous!”