 When I was in high school, I had a job at the local fast food chain. I worked there for four years, freshman year right up until I left for college. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't have some good times there. Holidays we spent together because we didn't have much choice. Managers who were either good people or just entertaining to work with coworkers who really became more like friends the longer you were there. And everything in between. I'm not going to say the whole four years was great, but it was an experience that I wouldn't trade for anything. Hell, I think that everyone should have to work fast food for at least a few months because it gives you a little bit of perspective on the guy behind the hair net. The chain I worked for was unique in many ways. They were one of the few who let people host events in the lobby. We had a small concert there once for a local metal band, which made for some entertaining times. They had a weird rehabilitate cons program that hired ex cons fresh from prison. That one worked pretty well until a couple of guys robbed the store after getting off shift and didn't even bother to take their name tags off. One of my favorites, though, was their open 24 hours program that they set up during the summer. Since I was under 18, I wasn't allowed to work past 10 on a school night. But during the summer, I could work as late or as early as I wanted. And I took full advantage of it to fill my pockets with cash. As you may have guessed, this program added a third shift to the usual two shift schedule and it was a 12 hour shift to boot. You'd come in at 6pm just as the dinner rush was ramping up and worked till 6am when the openers were coming in for their second cup of coffee. The hours were shit and the pay still wasn't great. No pay differential for late shifts. But what made it worthwhile was the four hour lull in between 1am and 5am. You might have to churn out some cheeseburgers or chicken nuggets for a bunch of drunk college kids or a carload of stoners. But for the most part, you just kept the store clean and hung out. It was a light crew mostly. And on the night this story takes place, I had a good bunch of guys with me. I'd gotten my friend a job there that year. We'll call him Ryan because he might read this. He and Trevor were on the grill that night. I was running the drive-through window and my favorite manager was watching the store, a guy named Joseph. Joseph was one of those rare managers that didn't have his head crammed up his ass and gave just enough of a shit to fly under the radar. He was a cool guy. I sometimes wonder whatever happened to him. Anyway, it had been a long night. The dinner rush was particularly bad so as it starts to die down we picked over the old food in the warmer box and went to the break room to hang out. Some managers frowned on this. Some would even write you up for it. But Joseph was cool and genuinely liked most of us that shared the third shift with him. The lobby doors were locked at midnight to keep the weirdos out and with the headset turned up so I could hear a car roll in, we started eating old cheeseburgers and swapping stories. The stories started pretty blandly. This thing had happened or that thing someone had heard about. But finally we fell into creepy stories about stuff we'd experienced. I told them about the weirdo in our parking lot a few years ago who'd creeped a bunch of people out before the cops arrived and found his wife's head in the passenger seat along with a bloody machete. We thought he meant to rob or murder us but it turned out he was just having a nervous breakdown in our parking lot after finally offing his old lady. Trevor tried to top it off with his story about a time he'd been drinking with his cousins in a cornfield but none of us believed it. He said the old farmer had come out of the cornfield, slasher flick style and screamed at them to get off his property while chasing them with a pitchfork. We piled in the truck and sped off but something hit the back tailgate hard. Well we didn't stop till we got to my cousin's house and what we saw when we got out was the last thing we expected. He said, pausing for dramatic effect. What was it, said Ryan, after Trevor had milked it a little too long. A pitchfork? The guy had thrown the pitchfork and stuck it right in the tailgate of the truck. If it had been a little higher, it could have come through the rear window glass and took all three of us right in the back of the head. He paused again like this should be some dramatic revelation. But Ryan and I both shared a look like we doubted most of this had happened. When Joseph spoke up from the doorway, all three of us jumped. He'd been counting down the safe so he hadn't been there for the start of the spooky stories. But it appeared he'd come in at some time during Trevor's story and stop to listen. Joseph was older than all three of us. A guy in his 30s with a wife and kids but we often forgot that when we were hanging out because of how naturally he related to us. He was an avid gamer who did all the cool stuff we still hoped we were doing when we were adults. Right then though, he had a decidedly dad look on his face as he assessed our little gathering of storytellers. I've got a story for you guys. He says spinning a chair around, sitting in it with his arms folded over the back. And it's a true story too. Want to hear it? We did. And he began. I was working at the store near downtown at the time and living in this dingy little apartment with my wife. We were broke and she was pregnant and out on maternity leave. I was finishing up my bachelor's degree during the day so nights were all I could count on to pay the bills. This was before the owner started up the third shift or I'd have been all over that. So the three to 11 shift was all I had. We had a real hard ass manager who kept us late almost every night, usually unpaid overtime since we couldn't clean it right the first time apparently. So most nights I was lucky to get off by 1230. The night in question had been especially bad and I didn't get permission to leave until one in the morning. It was Friday night though so I knew I could sleep until right before my shift tomorrow if I needed to. Picking up my bag, I started trudging home through the chill January air. Now I know it rarely gets cold here, being Florida and all. But that winter had been very bad. They talked about snow more than once and it had obliged by dumping a semi-solid sheet of slush all over the place the night before. Most of it was off the road but the wind was howling at me as I pulled my coat tight and walked up the deserted center of the road. Now downtown is usually party central unless you feel like driving to the beach. But tonight it was so cold that even the bars and coffee shops and all night diners had shuttered their faces and gone to bed. The street lights were on and the sewer grates were belching steam up into the cold night and the whole scene looked pretty creepy to me. So I'm walking up the center of the road and there's a damn good reason I'm doing that too in case you're wondering. I was made aware of Stephen King's it from a very young age and it had given me a real phobia about sewer drains. I didn't want to walk too close because even with my hard-won 23 years of wisdom I just knew that on a cold lonely night like tonight I would get a talent hand around my ankle and a quick trip into the sewer if I stepped too close to those smoking holes. So I walked right up the center of the street as far from the grates as I could and that particular night it led me into trouble. So I'm walking up the center line, boots clomping on the asphalt as I make my way through this way too quiet street. That's when I hear a noise. I thought at first it was the sound of steam escaping the grates. It was a hissing noise after all, but when it came again I heard it for what it was. You remember in grade school when some kid behind you wants to pass a note? So he makes that sound at you to get your attention. Well that's what that sound was a sound from the left side of the road. So I turn around but I don't see anyone. I start walking again and that same sound comes again from the left side of the road. I squinted at the dark alley between two buildings getting ready to start flying if someone comes running out to mug me but it's empty. That's when I heard it again and this time someone says something in a low voice too. It sounded like, hey buddy, followed by that sound again. Then I look down and I kid you not, there's a face in the drainage grate. As the steam comes curling up around it, I see a face looking out at me and the only thing I can make out is his eyes and they look huge. I booked it, I start running but as I run I hear the voice behind me shouting for me to come back. Then I realize that the voice isn't behind me anymore. I glance to my left and see that it's following me from opening to opening. Road feet are slapping on the stones down there and he's trying to get my attention when I hear him yell real loud and fall with a watery splash. I didn't slow in the least but I saw the black ice a little too late when I turned back to forward. I hit it and my feet shot straight up and out from under me. I fell back hard against the pavement and I was pretty sure I'd almost broken my elbow when I came down hard on the concrete. At the time I was trying to make my head stop spinning as the black spots danced around and I struggled up to my elbow, wincing as I got up on my elbow just as the spots started going away. That's when I saw something that made my blood run cold. What? I asked, unable to help myself, wrapped up so deeply until that moment that I'd barely remembered to breathe. The manhole cover, not five feet away, was coming up and a face is looking out at me. I tried to get up and I slipped again as this dripping, oozing thing climbs up out of the opening. He towers over me from my prone position and I start pushing with my legs as I slide away from him. He comes out oozing and quivering from the dark tunnel and in my mind he's like every shadowy creature from every horror movie I've ever seen. He's the creature from the black lagoon. He's it. He's the blob. And he's coming to drag me back down into the darkness so he can slowly devour me. His foot slaps down hard on the concrete as he menaces towards me. I'm still sliding away on my butt, my elbow starting to cry out now. And when my low back hit the curb, I just froze there as this creature from the midnight cinema towered over me, its oozy flesh dripping onto the concrete. It takes large ponderous steps as it moves in on me. And at this point, I'm so gripped with fear that I can't even move. Its flesh falls to the ground in gooey plops. And after a million years crammed into five seconds, it's standing not three feet away from me. It bends its mountainous head down towards me and in a gravelly voice, it says the last three words I would ever expect to hear from a creature like it. Got a light. We sat dumbfounded for nearly 15 seconds before Trevor sputters, what? He asked if he had a light. It turns out he was a homeless guy who'd been living in the sewers to stay warm. He'd gotten himself a pry bar so he could hook the lid up and stayed in the sewers at night where it was warm. He had no clue why it was so steamy down there, but it was a great place to sleep when the alternative was freezing your ass off in the park. Or down by the pier. When I asked him why he was covered and what I hoped was mud, he said that he'd been chasing after me, trying to get a lighter to spark a cigarette when he'd fallen into a muddy slush puddle and gotten covered in the stuff. I laughed and handed him the lighter out of my bag, an old zippo my old man had given me and considered it a fair trade for a great story. I have told that story so many times over the years and it never gets old. We laughed about that story and Joseph's deadpan way of building it up until the final clincher for years to come and I've begged him to retell it a half hundred times. So if you're ever downtown on a cold night and someone tries to get your attention from the closest sewer trench, remember that it's probably some vagrant trying to stay warm and have a smoke. And if they drag you down into the sewer for a slow process of digestion, then I guess I was wrong, wasn't I?