Rain fell in heavy sheets over the flickering neon sign of Deer Gas Station, its “Open 24 Hours” glow reflecting in puddles across the cracked asphalt. Mary White clutched her jacket tighter as she stepped inside, her breath quick in the cold night air. Fresh out of prison and desperate for a clean start, she had taken the overnight shift, hoping the solitude of the graveyard hours would help her keep her mind quiet. But solitude was dangerous for Mary—her past had teeth. Two years earlier, she had set fire to the home of her boyfriend, James Lincoln Fields, a charming but sadistic serial killer known as “The Rain Ripper.” He was gone, dead in the flames—or so she told herself.
The first hours passed in uneasy calm, the hum of the refrigerators mixing with the occasional hiss of tires on wet pavement. Then the phone began to ring. Static, then breathing. A voice, low and familiar, whispered her name. Mary froze. It couldn’t be him—James was dead. But as the night dragged on, signs piled up like bodies in her memory: a bouquet of wilted flowers left on the counter, a bloody raincoat hanging in the supply room, a smudge on the glass door shaped like a handprint. Her pulse pounded as shadows seemed to shift behind the aisles, and every time she turned, the store was empty. Yet deep down, she knew she was being watched.
A customer came in—a trucker with a grin too wide, eyes too fixed. Mary tried to stay calm, ringing him up quickly, but when he leaned in to whisper, “You can’t hide from me forever,” she dropped the coins. Her hands trembled as she realized it wasn’t the trucker’s voice—it was James’s, using the mouths of strangers like puppets. The line between reality and her mind began to blur; she saw him in the convex mirrors, in the glass doors of the freezer, in the puddles outside. Each vision was sharper than the last, each one carrying the scent of rain and gasoline. And when the power cut out, leaving her with only the beam of her flashlight, she felt him close enough to touch.
By dawn, the police found the store in ruins—shattered glass, overturned shelves, and Mary on the floor, clutching a bloodstained tire iron. She swore she had fought him, that she had looked into James’s eyes as she brought the weapon down. But there was no body, no footprints, no trace of anyone else. The detectives chalked it up to trauma and paranoia. Yet, as she was led away, Mary caught sight of the puddles outside—ripples spreading as if someone had just stepped through them. In the distance, under the fading glow of the gas station sign, she thought she saw him: tall, smiling, and waving. The rain had started again, and somewhere deep inside, Mary knew her night shift had only just begun.
