by D. S. Ritter
“Seven-One to HQ.”
“Go ahead, Seven-One.”
“I’m hearing some stuff down in the basement. Is it okay if I check it out?”
“You got a trainee out there with you, Seven-One?”
“Yeah, I’ll take him with me.”
“Ten-Four. Just wanted to make sure you weren’t leaving him on his own.”
“Ten-Four.”
Even if Joe wouldn't be around long, you didn’t snitch on your coworkers unless it was your job or theirs. Or, you were okay being a pariah, which some people certainly were. If the offending party had absolutely pissed everyone else off, you could get away with it, but getting other people fired was generally frowned upon. So Sam had lied, and now she checked traffic would continue smoothly before she went downstairs, where they had both parked.
Joe drove a rusted green clunker with the muffler almost hanging off. The passenger-side mirror was attached with duct tape. “Here’s Joe’s car,” she said to herself, peering inside, “but, where’s Joe?” Sam decided to check out the rest of the basement, wondering if maybe he’d just wandered off.
She found him a half-level down, sitting on an old milk crate in the corner. He was asleep with a half-smoked joint hanging from his lip. Beside him was a cistern with a steel cover which, the one time it had been open had revealed pitch blackness with water dimly reflecting at the bottom. In short, it creeped her the hell out.
“Dude, you gotta come back up,” she said, shaking him.
“Huh…?” he said, his eyes fluttering open. “What?”
“You gotta get back to work. You were gone for like, an hour.”
The guy stretched and stood up. “Shit. Anyone notice?”
“Not yet.” Sam pointed at the joint, barely able to keep her irritation out of her tone. “They use any excuse to drug test, by the way. Bump literally anything with your car, ever, you’re going to be peeing in a cup before you can do anything else.”
“Good to know.” He put the joint in his pocket and headed toward the stairs.
Sam found her gaze falling on the steel lid of the cistern. It seemed like it might have been opened; it had shifted a little and she could see a wide crack. It might have been her imagination, but she thought she heard the water swishing below. Telling herself it was nothing, she went upstairs and back to work.
Sam could no longer questioned Shelly’s opinion of Joe. Over the course of the next seven hours, she gained a deep understanding of how much of a burnout Joe was. He would just stand at the machine and stare into space. She was a bit surprised he came back after lunch. He stared off into space like he was absolutely not there. Truly a master of zoning out.
They didn’t collect any cash, so Joe’s paperwork at the end of the shift was pretty painless. Once that was over, Sam felt herself relax; he was no longer her responsibility.
It wasn’t that Sam liked the job or the company, but she’d worked at Empire for two years and it was one of the best-paying jobs she could get without a degree. She took it seriously even though, in the grand scheme of things, her work didn’t mean anything. She filled a space that shouldn’t even exist; a middle man between customers and a machine they should be able to use themselves. She didn't create anything; she facilitated a moment that everyone would forget, just so it wouldn’t take any longer than absolutely necessary, but it was better than working at McDonald’s. If she didn’t take some pride in her work, she’d either burn out like many of her coworkers, or sink into depression. Thus, she tried to be the best parking lot attendant in Ann Arbor. If only in her mind.
Chapter Three
Even in the dead of summer, the parking business heated up during the weekends. Friday night proved no exception. There was some event at one of the theaters downtown, which meant fielding questions all night about where it was, if parking was free for the event, why wasn’t parking free, where was there free parking? Sam dealt with customers patiently though there were a few instances where things got a little tense.
“Is the lot full?” demanded a woman driving an Audi full of her friends. They were all dressed to the nines and the woman in the passenger seat was haphazardly applying a very expensive brand of eyeliner using the rear-view mirror.
Sam, who had been rushed off her feet since getting on shift, leaned over, looked at the big electronic sign outside that read “FULL” and said, “Yep, it looks like it.”
“Are you sure there isn’t a spot open?”
“We just had a car count, ma’am, so I’m pretty sure. You’ll have to wait a few minutes for someone to leave.”
The woman huffed. She waited a second to see if the customer needed anything else and then turned to return to her post. “What a bitch.” Sam didn’t even turn around, but kept walking. She'd heard worse.
There’d been one time, almost a year before, when she’d been dealing with a late night customer and his girlfriend.
Empire’s unwritten policy was that unless a customer damaged property, you didn’t call the police on them, even if they were drunk. So, when Sam saw that the man couldn’t line his ticket up with the slot, all she could do was ask if he needed assistance. “No,” spat the man, “I’m fucking fine. It’s this stupid fucking machine.”
The man continued trying to stick his ticket in the slot, becoming more aggressive. When it finally went in, the total came up on the screen. “That’ll be a dollar-fifty,” said Sam, deeply regretting that their interaction would continue.
“What the fuck?” demanded the man. “I already paid.”
“Do you have a receipt?”
“‘Do you have a receipt?’” he mocked, running his hand over his shaved head. “No! I don’t have a fucking receipt.”
Sam ejected the ticket and looked at it. There was no “paid” time stamp. “Did you pay with cash or a credit card?”
“This is fucking bullshit, just let me out.”
“Sir, I can call this in, but unless you’ve got some proof, they’re probably just going to make you pay the dollar-fifty. You can pay with a card here, or cash in the elevator lobby.”
“Bitch, I don’t have a credit card.”
“Then, you’re going to need to pay cash in the elevator lobby, sir.”
She handed his ticket back, though it scared her to be even that close. When he got out of the car to go pay, leaving it idling in the lane, she gave him a wide berth, moving over to the other exit, as though she were on the lookout for more customers. His girlfriend flipped her the bird from inside the car.
“Hey, stupid bitch!” screamed the man from the lobby machine. “This piece of shit ain’t working!”
The blood drained from Sam's face as he continued to scream obscenities as loud as he could until she walked over. The few people walking home from the bars had stopped to listen, and frankly, if they hadn’t been there, she wouldn’t have gone anywhere near him.
“Can I help you?” she asked, doing her best to remain even.
“This stupid piece of shit isn’t working! I should go take a shit in this fucking piece of shit structure. I’m going to piss and shit in this structure every time I come,” he ranted as she reinserted his parking ticket and watched the screen, desperately hoping the machine was working right. The screen flashed and went through the payment process. She almost sighed with relief.
“And if I see you again, I’m going to fucking beat the shit out of you. I’m going to to shoot you in the fucking head.”
Shock at his words rolled over her, and for a second, Sam didn’t say anything. “Have a good night,” she uttered, not looking at him as she walked away.
Then, she locked herself in the bathroom and cried for about ten minutes.
When she came out again, he and his terrible girlfriend had gone, and she tried to pretend nothing had happened. She’d never seen him again and figured he was so drunk there was no way he’d remember her, or that he’d threatened to kill her over a dollar fifty. But she never forgot how afraid he’d made her,
or how much she hated him for it.
So, when that woman’s friend called her a bitch, it slid off her shoulders, not even in the same league with the fear and rage she’d felt at the hands of that abusive customer.
In a few minutes, an SUV with a bored-looking man in it left and the car full of women came in. Sam just hoped she didn’t have to see them again until they left. Disgusted stares were harder to take than verbal insults, assuming they bothered to acknowledge at all.
The structure was busy, but traffic was moving smoothly. Sam moved from exit to exit, assisting and making small talk. She kept her customer service smile on and politeness became easy.
A few hours later, break was on her mind and traffic was getting heavier, when Franklin Marsh showed up.
“What are you doing here?” she asked as he walked up.
“Picked up a shift, but they didn’t have anywhere to send me,” he said, “so they stuck me out here.”
They had hired Franklin about six months after Sam and most considered him pretty chill. He was a big guy, over six feet tall and broad, but his disposition was mellow, non confrontational. Who needed to be confrontational when you looked like you could dead lift anyone giving you problems?
“I can always use an extra set of hands,” said Sam, turning back to the lane as another customer pulled up.
They worked without talking to each other for a while. When the traffic lulled, Franklin said, “Hey, did you hear about Joe?”
“The new guy? No, what about him?”
“Nothing. Guy’s just weird. They found him asleep in the bathroom over at Seven-Two earlier. Pauline was waiting on him to come back for like, a half hour. Totally screwed up everyone’s breaks over there.”
“So, he’s fired?”
Franklin shrugged. “I don’t know. Looks like management’s probably keeping him on for the weekend at least.”
“Seriously? That seems like bullshit to me. If any of us were five minutes late from break it’d be a write-up, but this guy, on probation, falls asleep at work and gets a pass?”
“Eh. I don’t think he’s going to make his ninety days though.”
“God, I hope not.” The ninety day period before induction into the union was considered “probation.” Most new hires never made it that far, either getting fired for minor offenses, or quitting before the three months passed.
Sam thought about saying something to soften that statement, not wanting him to think she wanted people to get fired, when they heard what could be described, vaguely, as a howl.
“The hell was that?” asked Franklin.
Sam felt a tingle go up her spine. “I have no idea.”
“Should I call it in?”
“Maybe it was nothing.” She said this trying to convince herself as much as him and smiled at the customer waiting in her lane.
They didn’t hear anything again for about another twenty minutes, but then they did.
The howling, which did not sound like a dog, unless it had been crushed by a garbage truck or something, rang up out of the basement, louder this time. The two attendants looked at each other. “That sounds bad,” said Franklin. “I’ll go check it out.”
“I don’t know if you should do that,” said Sam, picturing the coolant goober, but bigger and meaner.
“It’s cool. I’ll radio it in in a sec,” he said, heading down the ramp at an easy jog.
“Famous last words,” said Sam under her breath. Her conscience prickled as she watched him disappear around the corner, but went back to moving the traffic and hoped it was just a dog and a weird echo.
Two minutes later, she heard a scream. It was not her imagination; even the guy she'd been helping looked back at the sound.
Sam didn’t bother to radio in the disturbance, she just headed for the basement. Where this bravery came from, she had no idea. She stopped at her car and pulled a rusted five-iron out of the trunk. She’d found it by a dumpster months before, and until now, couldn’t have told you why she’d picked the thing up.
Sounds of snuffling and Frankin’s curses were coming from the lower level, so she walked down the ramp, holding the golf club out like a sword, clutched in both hands. As she turned the corner to head to the lowest level, she noticed the lid to the cistern lay wide open.
She found Franklin locked in the supply hold. A creature, slightly larger than a dog, pushed against the chain-link door, bending it inward with its weight. It made little chuffing, howling noises from an orifice Sam could only assume was its mouth, full of rows of shark’s teeth and drooling green slime onto the concrete. Short tentacles portruded from all over its slick, brownish-green body, and sharp claws on its four, bi-toed feet pried at the thin aluminum wire.
She wasn’t sure if the thing had ears, but it was distracted by Franklin and didn’t hear her as she sneaked up on it, the club raised above her head.
Sam brought it down on what she thought was its head. The creature made a thick plopping sound as the shaft broke through its skin and into the pudding-like substance beneath. She screamed as the inertia of the blow carried five-iron all the way through in a dull slice, splitting the thing in two from head to mid-chest area. Frozen, she watched as the creature collapse into a heap, a few of its tentacles quivering.
“Oh my god,” she breathed, pulling the golf club out of the corpse. “Fuck, this is so gross.”
“What the fuck is that thing?” demanded Franklin as she unlocked the hold.
“I have no clue. I think I killed a smaller one down here the other night.”
“What?!”
“I don’t know! I mean, I thought I might have imagined it or something. When they came down to look, it was gone!”
“This is some messed up alien shit or something,” he said, poking the body with the snow shovel. “I mean, what is this thing?”
They both screamed a little when it started to dissolve into green goop right in front of them.
“I am not getting paid enough for this shit,” moaned Sam, staring at the puddle. “But at least I’m not crazy, right?”
“I wish I’d gotten it on my phone. We’d make so much money on YouTube.”
“Dude, it was trying to eat you.” She almost laughed though it didn’t feel like anything was funny. In the back of her mind she noted this was probably a symptom of shock. “But this is dangerous. What if it did eat someone?”
“It’s dead now, right?”
“Fuck, I hope so. But, what if that’s not the only one?”
“Then we are in big trouble.”
They watched the little pool of slime for a moment. A car horn brought them back to reality. Returning to street level, they found the traffic backed up to the second floor, and Marcus, the night manager, waiting at the gate.
“Where the heck have you guys been?” he asked as he processed one of the customers. “We got a call the gates weren’t working, and nobody was picking up their radios!”
“We heard some noises downstairs,” said Sam, before Franklin could say anything. “It sounded bad, so we went to go look. Didn’t find anyone, but there’s a bunch of coolant spilled, and the gate to the hold is all bent up. We think someone tried to break in.”
Marcus nodded. “Well, that’s something you guys need to radio in. I’ll go down and take a look. You guys work on moving these customers through.”
“Why didn’t you tell him the truth?” asked Franklin, manning one of the exits.
"What’s he going to find when he gets down there? We have no proof there was a monster, just damage. Do you want to pay to fix the gate? Or get fired for damaging company property? ‘Cause I don’t."
Franklin made a face. “Ann Arbor’s getting weird.”
Sam shook her head. “No joke.”
"Short tentacles portruded from all over its slick, brownish-green body..."
Chapter Four
Everyone worked Saturdays, no exceptions. It was all hands on deck every weekend, even in summer. The good news was the garage
s closed on Sundays, so Saturday was as good as Friday at Empire parking. Plus, you saw a bunch of coworkers you didn’t get to during the rest of the week and there was a general expectation of relaxation and relief. Many people complained about having to work every Saturday, but Sam considered it the best day of the week. If something went down, it usually happened on a Saturday. This ranged from the schedule being slightly different due to events going on in the city, to major issues with customers.
During the school year, a weekend didn’t go by without the police or an ambulance being called. Sure, these incidents were stressful for those involved, but at least they broke up the tedium of an incredibly repetitive job.
This Saturday, though, Sam hoped for things to stay quiet. Namely, that no crazy monsters would climb out of the Seven-One basement. She’d managed to get most of the garbage-smelling goo off of her golf club and it lay ready, waiting in the bathroom should she be called to action.
It was still early in the evening when her phone chirped with a text;
Franklin M:
See any monsters yet?
Sam shot a quick one back saying she hadn’t and hoped she wouldn’t.
Having someone else know about the situation made her feel a lot better somehow. It meant she wasn’t crazy. But, what the heck would she do if more of the creatures showed up? If she was going to be real about it, run. They could fire her if they wanted to; no job was worth dying for.
Her theory was that the monsters had come out of the cistern, so maybe she could block it off somehow. Park her car on top, or leave something heavy over it so it couldn’t be opened from inside. There was no telling when maintenance would have to go in, but at least it wouldn’t be a problem until then.