I worked at a small, two-pump independent gas station up north in rural Ontario. The station was off a highway, surrounded by nothing but forest and road. I was younger at the time, in my early twenties, and was looking for an easy job while I was figuring out my life. I was offered the graveyard shift, 11 P.M. to 7 A.M., at the gas station. It was the easiest job I’ve ever gotten. The manager was eager to fill that shift and offered me a job the same day, after my short 10-minute interview. I told my friends and they said it was too dangerous and a bad idea, as I was a girl, and who knew what type of people would come to the store in the middle of the night. However, it was a good opportunity to save some money and do a job that didn’t ask much of me — exactly what I needed.

When I started the job, I fell into a routine fairly quickly: there was a 1 A.M. rush from the bar crowd coming in for snacks and smokes. Truckers would trickle in to stop for the occasional coffee and quick chat. Between 3 and 5 A.M., nothing much happened. That’s when I would do some clean up, stock inventory, or scroll on my phone. At 5:30 A.M., the first commuters would start to show up, and before I knew it, it would be 7 A.M. and time to go home.

This was the same pattern for weeks. But, one night, that pattern broke. An older man, around 50 or so, entered the store at 3:30 A.M. As I was doom scrolling, my heart kicked up into my throat hard enough to make me gag. It caught me off guard so badly because I didn’t see him pull in — car lights usually alerted me to someone’s arrival. I greeted the man. He didn’t look at me, but he didn’t look away either. It was strange and I decided not to push the conversation. I kept looking at my phone while the man paced the aisles of the store. He was slowly making his way through each section, but he was barely looking at the shelves, as if deep in thought. At this point, I became alert, and put my phone away. I wasn’t sure what he was up to, but I made myself look attentive, almost like letting him know I wasn’t going to be surprised again.

When he completed his rounds of the aisles, he went to the middle refrigerator and just stopped. Again, he strangely stood still in front of the glass door, not moving his head or anything, as if he wasn’t looking for anything. I couldn’t help but watch him, trying to understand his intentions.

That’s when our eyes met, through the reflection of the glass — he was staring right at me.

I was getting nervous, and put my hand over the panic button under the counter, instinctively. We locked eyes for what seemed an eternity. For some reason, my fight-or-flight kicked in, and I chose fight. I felt so much aggression towards this man, and wanted him to leave.

The man finally broke eye contact, and walked to the coffee machine and made himself a small black coffee. He finally came to the front counter to pay, and I looked at him, but he refused to make direct eye contact. My aggression towards the man increased, but I toned it down to not aggravate the man. I inhaled through my nose and treated him like any other customer. I did the usual and asked him if he found everything okay, but he didn’t reply — he just stood there in silence, awkwardly ignoring me.

I told him the total and he dropped coins, the exact change, and meticulously walked to the exit. Before he left, he stopped right at the door, looked up directly at one of our DVR cameras. He paused and glared at it. After a moment, he continued his way out.

I kept an eye on him, to make sure he would drive away. As I watched him, I saw him walk straight to the garbage can and throw his coffee out, without taking a single sip from it. I remember shaking my head in disbelief. That’s when I noticed there were no cars parked in the lot. Once again, I couldn’t understand what was happening. If he didn’t drive here, where did he come from? Then, I saw him stride right into the forest.

Now it made sense why he startled me when he first walked in — there were no car lights to alert me. And then, it hit me even harder: where was this man going? There were no houses or cabins anywhere near the gas station. It was all forest and road. So where did he come from?

I began to panic.

I decided to lock the doors and put the “I’m sorry, we’re closed” sign up. I made sure all other exits were locked as well. I went into the manager’s office and planned to wait out the night there.

While I was waiting the night out, I saw a screen displaying the live feeds from the DVR system. It showed the feed of the outdoor and indoor cameras. I thought that’s how I would keep an eye out and make sure the man didn’t return. As I watched, an idea came over me — why not look at the recordings? Maybe I could see what this man was doing before he came in. After some Googling and poking around, I learned the cameras kept two weeks of footage — and I could easily access it. So, I started scrubbing through the footage, starting 2 weeks prior.

What I found made me want to puke.

Through all hours of the night, I would occasionally see the man doing something around the station. Most of the time, he would stand at the edge of the forest, either watching other customers without their noticing him or staring at the store. Sometimes, he would walk across the lot, from one edge of the forest, to another, glaring into the station as he walked by. The worst part is that I never noticed any of this at the time.

I then found a clip of a woman pulling up to pump gas into her car. As she was filling up, the man approached her from behind. He stopped a couple of feet behind her and watched her. She finished filling, took her receipt, and took off, all without ever noticing the man. He stood there a moment longer after she left before receding into the forest. At this point, I knew something was wrong with this man, and started taking video recordings of these incidents with my phone.

After a horrific few hours of watching these replays and keeping an eye on the live feed, I could see the usual customers show up for their 5:30 stop. I thought it would be safe enough to open the place up again, since I hadn’t seen the man on the cameras since he left. I felt comfort in the wave of people coming through the store. I knew I was chattier than usual, probably stretching out how long each customer stayed.

Then, my shift came to an end as my manager arrived. She was a friendly older lady who was always kind, cheery, and helpful. After she gave me her kind greetings, I told her everything that happened that night, including showing her the footage. At one point, she cut me off, furious with me.

Not at all the reaction I was expecting.

She yelled at me for closing the store during working hours and for messing with the DVR system, which I had no authority to use. She scolded me and tried to make me feel awful. She told me if I was too cowardly for this job, I should quit then and there. When she told me this, there was a hint of concern on her face, as if she knew something I didn’t.

Needless to say, that interaction made me so angry. Her disregard for my concerns and safety blew my mind. I quit on the spot. When I did, I saw sadness on her face, almost concern. I grabbed my things and left. I have never gone back to that place.

It’s been years now since that happened. I’ve moved away and found a different career path. But that night still haunts me, and my interaction with that man and my manager still makes my stomach drop. There are so many questions and concerns I have. There was something genuinely off about that whole situation.

For some reason, I recently decided to Google the place to see if it was still operational. Instead, I got an extensive list of search results with news articles. A couple of years ago, around a year after I left, a young woman working the night shift at that gas station was abducted by a man.

There was footage.

The man came from the forest, abducted the woman, and disappeared back into it, with her slouched on his shoulder.

The police still haven’t found him.

In fact, for about twenty years now, there has been a list of abductions happening along that stretch of the highway. Some women were taken from stores, others were hitchhikers, and others were unfortunate women who stopped on the highway for one reason or another. Police suspect most of these abductions to be related.

I couldn’t breathe while I was reading this.

Could that man I met have been the one responsible for all these disappearances? That thought alone gave me shivers. And then it came to me: did my manager know? Did she know about the stories and was upset to lose another worker to fear? That face she made — she knew I was in real danger.

And it all makes sense now. She was desperate — desperate to find someone brave enough, or stupid enough, to work that night shift. I felt tremendous anger towards that woman.

I watched one of the videos the police had released, looking for a face I recognized. It was a recording of the camera above the door, with the man leaving the store with the lady on his shoulder. Before leaving, he stopped, and stared at the camera. The footage was blurry, but I could read his familiar face: he was telling the camera he hadn’t failed this time.