part 8
the petrol station
Okay, so this one was also while I was fifteen. Now, those rocks we found in the snake? Well, they went missing shortly after we pulled them out of the reptile. We'd wrapped them in ziplock bags and shoved them into a shoebox we kept in the top kitchen cabinet, so I can't tell you the exact time they disappeared.
And I can't tell you where they are now. Anyway, one day Saul and I are waiting for the bus at school, to take me back to the house I share with mum and Sandy- not Vav's house.
Saul turns to me and says that some guy is staring at me >inb4 pedophile after my young nubile body So I look around and I cant see anybody.
"Where? Dude where?" I looked around and Saul had gone really quiet.
"What the fuck?" He said, and grabbed my hand. (Saul is hand holder, for reals.) Anyway, I shake his hand off because Darwin is not somewhere you really want to be seen holding hands with another guy. Fuck Darwin, also. We get on the bus and Saul points and goes "There. That guy."
Oh, it's Animal. I wave. He doesn't wave back. I suddenly felt like there was something really fucking wrong.
"Who IS that guy?" Introducing Saul the fucking detective.
"Sit the fuck down, Saul." "What's that?" staring at this guy, we have to sit down, Saul is crammed against the window and we're both watching as animal lifts a hand and holds up something.
"What IS that?" I lean forward.
Oh, This guy is holding a pair of fucking eyes, still attached to the optic nerve at the ends. Okay.
Saul makes a high-pitched whine and Animal grins at me. Fucking, biggest shit eating grin ever.
So the entire bus ride I have to listen to Saul having what sounds like an asthma attack, while patting him on the shoulder consolingly, while in reality all I wanted to do was call Vav and ask her if Animal was dead or a real fucking creep.
Saul gets off a couple of stops after me, so he just stares at me the whole time, and I give him a weak smile and wave as I get off the bus.
I have to walk a couple of streets to actually get to my place, so its usually about a ten-minute walk. However, on this particular day, as soon as the bus turned the corner away from me, I hauled ass.
I got to the house in record time of a couple of minutes. I reached into my pocket to get my key, and felt something slimy.
My brain hit the panic button labelled "OH FUCK NO." So I end up reaching in again and producing this fucking eye-and I'm stood there thinking that this isn't fucking fain That I don't fucking deserve this, and I just threw this eye as far as I could. I was nine hundred percent done with this bullshit.
By the time I got inside and cleaned the shit off my keys, changed my pants, and had the phone up to my ear waiting for Vav to answer, I had the most brutal headache.
So the last story actually brought back some bad memories, it wasn't that important and I never saw Animal again so I'm going to just move on to when I was eighteen.
The small tidbits between me being fifteen and eighteen aren't much, just more ghostly shit, and a couple of spots of other Australian cryptid bullshit that weren't as full-on as they were once I turned eighteen. But if I'm writing about one I'll mention in brackets or some shit if I've seen it before and give some basic details.
Basically I'm skipping that chapter of my life because when i was seventeen I got meningitis and had to be hospitalized, hallucinations, needle in spine and all that. It was a whole pile of suck. A couple of months after that fucking awful experience, I was contacted by social security and the police because my Dad's body was found in a car that had crashed into a tree. He'd been drinking and something happened on a road, I don't know.
Combining that with the spooky shit, and my bad home life; I ended up having a sort-of mental breakdown my last year of high school. I had to drop out because I couldn't handle life and stuff. I ended up movin in with Vav for the long haul because my mother and I had this massive fight; and she didn't want to ever see my face again. I got out of my funk just after my eighteenth birthday, and also my second job. (first job was retail at a corner store.)
Blue Mon 27 Jan 2014 21 No.14088701 Quoted By: >>14088683
I worked at a privately owned service station (gas station for you Amerifags), so there was no Shell/Caltex/Starmart/Woolworths putting its brand all over shit. It was located a bit out of town on the highway, and it wasn't in great shape. There was a leak in one of the fridges that spread water over the linoleum constantly, so we had to run a towel over that section every couple of hours.
I got to and from work in this fucking lemon that Vav let me use, because she had her truck. It was pretty rusty and sometimes the brakes stuck but at that point I didn't really give a fuck.
Anyway, about the shop; It was pretty small. We had only three pumps. (Two unleaded, one diesel.) There was this big freezer about the length of a car outside that had a door on it for ice. Anyway this Ice box would clank every couple of hours, quite loudly if you were working nightshift, but I was pretty used to it. We had a staff toilet and shower in the back, a public toilet outside that required a key, and a couple of shitty cameras that watched the door, the till, and the pumps.
This place was decked out with only the most basic of shit, because it was privately owned and a fuck away from everything else. Our boss, this guy named Matt, was actually pretty good.
He always made sure that two people worked night shift because people are less likely to rob/murder you if you have more than one person in the shop at one time. He also let us watch TV shows/bring in our own movies to watch behind the till on this small ass TV that was on the counter.
I worked with two people usually on night shift; this aboriginal woman in her late twenties named Amy, and this other guy named Rooster who looked like he fell out of bad place in Europe or some shit. Amy was tall and skinny, and had ever-frowning brown eyes that could barely be bothered to look up from the magazines she poured through. She used to paint her nails in the store weird colours, and I'd let her do mine if she was in a social mood. We fell into that awkward not-quite-friends but a little more than coworkers after I caught her smoking inside and told her she was a fucking idiot. We were at a fucking petrol station, for fucks sake.
Rooster was... different. He had this stack of Ren and Stimpy VHS he'd watch every time he came in, or else the Simpsons. He used to be the one to use a hammer to make the warped ground near the fridge leak go flat again, and also found it hilarious to play the "Who is that?" game with me. You see, when you work night-shift at a petrol station where there is no night counter, it means if people want fuel, or snacks, or what-the-fuck-ever, you have to hit the button that opens the automatic door, because after 1 Opm, we turn off the auto and open it manually.
Now, the camera facing the door lets us get an okay look at people, because sometimes you aren't there watching and you miss them step out of the darkness or their cars- into the shitty exterior lights.
So there is this unspoken rule at Australian gas stations after about 1 1 pm, where if you are approaching one that has a night counter, and you aren't a fucking insane person, you hold out your hands either side of you, just off your body. This way we can see that you don't currently have a weapon on you, and really ups your chances of opening the door. You see, we're trapped inside this box until daylight, and if you look dodgy as fuck, we don't open the fucking door.
It's the number one rule of being a petrol station clerk working nightshift. You don't leave for anything. So if someone is being actively stabbed outside, you call the police. You do not open the door, and you do not leave the store. After you call the police you call your boss, it's just the way it works.
When people show their hands, we decide if they look like they're going to try to steal shit or murder us, then I hit the switch that opens the door, then it shuts and locks behind them. So while this person putters around all five aisles of snacks and other bullshit, we watch them and try to figure out their story, because night shift is fucking boring. That's the whole point of the "who is that?" game, and it becomes pretty weird because of repeat customers.
Every night-shift petrol station clerk has a story about at least one repeat customer. For instance, we had one guy come in every Tuesday and Friday between the hours of 1 1 pm and lam and he would buy eight bags of ice, a four pack of mini cable ties, and a large ice coffee.
Every time, no
changes. Each bag of ice is about the size of a three or
four year old, and weighs five kilos. That is what makes
the "who is that?" game so much fun, because you have
no fucking idea what these people are doing.
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