The Night Shift

By Saleah Yusuf

“She approached the unfamiliar door, and nervously took the key from her pocket. She took a deep breath, unlocked the door, paused, then opened it. To her horror, she saw… Leslie with no makeup on!” Charlotte exploded into a fit of giggles, at her last statement. Her shoulders shook with every laugh. Most of the breakroom laughed along with her. Except Leslie Rowe, of course. While she didn’t appreciate being the butt of yet another one of Charlotte’s borderline mean jokes, she knew better than to make a fuss over it. As did most of the other SmartSave employees in the stuffy breakroom. Charlotte Higgins was all bark, and absolutely no bite. Sure, she made the occasional biting jab, now and again (and again and again), but everyone knew Charlotte meant no real harm. 

“Yes, that’s very funny, Lottie. Or it would be, if we hadn’t heard some iteration of this story at least a hundred times already.” 

The snarky retort came from Guy Marsh, Leslie’s work best friend, and Charlotte’s ex-boyfriend. Charlotte’s face immediately turned pink, in a mixture of annoyance and embarrassment, as a few coworkers snorted in response to Guy’s words. She squared her shoulders, and gave Guy her best attempt at a death glare. 

Leslie chuckled to herself. At 5 ’11, with a strong athletic build courtesy of all of her years of conditioning and training for basketball season back in high school, Charlotte Higgins wasn’t someone most people would want to get mad- male or female. But being well over 6 feet tall, and a former student athlete himself, Guy was well and up to the task. 

Leaning back against the wall he’d been propped against for almost the entire lunch break now, Guy looked up at the ceiling, as though asking for an intervention from some higher power. “It’s always the same story- some unfortunate coworker gets stuck working the night shift alone. While cleaning up, just before they clock out, they find a weird-looking key on the counter. They put it in their pocket for some reason, and just then, they hear a strange noise and decide to investigate, even though they’re all by themselves. They discover a strange door, right next to Trish’s office door. The mystery key, in their pocket, just happens to open the creepy door. Then, they open the door, and find the most random, anti-climatic thing ever.” 

Leslie watched her fellow, underpaid SmartSave employees nod in agreement with Guy. As bad as she felt for Charlotte, even Leslie had to admit that Guy was right. Charlotte Higgin’s scary stories were absolutely underwhelming. Leslie was pretty sure she’d heard scarier stuff listening to NPR with her grandmother. 

“Alright, fine,” Charlotte said, as she stood up from her chair, in the middle of the breakroom, and walked up to Guy. Her long blonde hair swayed with every step.  She stood right in front of him, her blue eyes pinning his hazel ones in place. “You want to be scary? I’ll give you terrifying.” There were a few nervous giggles around the room, as the mood shifted. Leslie looked at the large, digital clock hanging above the breakroom door. 2:30 pm. Three more hours of pretending to care about cereal box arrangements and rogue cans of tomato paste, and she could go home. I’d better ask Guy to give me a ride. Waiting for the bus- 

Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud gasp from someone on her left. Leslie turned her head to see Diya Jain put her hands over her mouth, and it was at that moment that Leslie realized that Charlotte had been telling her story while she’d let her own mind wander. Diya looked around the room with a sheepish expression and folded her hands in her lap. “Sorry, I’m just really squeamish today.” Charlotte smiled at her, before turning back to face Guy. She spoke to Diya, but her eyes never left Guy’s. “It’s okay, Di. Happens to the best of us. Now, where was I? That’s right! Leslie gets roped into working the night shift alone. Trish needed volunteers, but no one stepped up.” Charlotte’s gaze moved around the small breakroom. To Leslie, she looked as though she were trying to summon something.  

“So, anyway, Leslie’s shift was almost over, and she had just finished cleaning up Aisle 9. Everything was normal. That is, until she found a weird-looking key on the customer service desk. And that’s when she noticed that something was off. Very off.”  

Charlotte’s voice had dropped low and deliberate, her earlier smugness now wrapped in a slow, theatrical suspense. Leslie wasn’t sure at what point the room had gone so still, but the buzz of the vending machine in the corner, suddenly sounded a lot louder.  

“She picks it up, of course. Because what else do you do when you find a creepy key sitting right in the middle of the counter? You pocket it. Naturally.” 

Guy rolled his eyes, but didn’t interrupt. Not this time. 

Charlotte began to pace now, drawing them in. “Just then, she hears a noise. Something from the back hallway. Like a heavy box falling. She goes to check, and guess what she sees? A door. An old, wooden door, right next to Trish’s office. One that wasn’t there before.” 

A few people chuckled nervously, as Leslie rolled her eyes, taking a page from Guy’s playbook. She still couldn’t help the shiver that ran down her spine. She crossed her arms, as if trying to physically block Charlotte’s words.  Something about them this time seemed less jokey, less mean-spirited. She sounded… focused. Almost serious. Almost.

“She uses the key,” Charlotte continued, lowering her voice to a whisper. “And opens it. To her horror, she sees-”

“That’s enough story time. Break’s over. Let’s get back to being miserable and underpaid, people.” Trish’s voice was as sharp and grating as ever. And just like that, the spell broke. Everyone groaned and filed out in varying degrees of irritation and resentment. Chairs scraped against the linoleum floors, and the hum of the vending machine filled the silence that Trish’s voice had left behind. Leslie sighed, dragging her feet towards the produce aisle, like a soul returning to purgatory. Guy muttered something rude under his breath, and Diya and some other coworkers laughed. 

Leslie hadn’t made it two steps when Charlotte sidled up beside her, and said, with a knowing smile, “I can’t wait to see how the story ends.” 

“This is so unfair!” 

“I’m sorry, Les. Jeremy called in sick, last minute. And I’m short-staffed.” Trish Matisse stood by the punch clock, arms crossed, her ever-present clipboard clutched to her chest like it was armor. “You’re the only one I trust to close out properly. It’s only one night.” 

Leslie’s jaw clenched. She wanted to argue, but what was the point? When Trish used that voice- the overly reasonable one- it was already set in stone. She could see Charlotte still hovering nearby, with a half-smirk playing on her lips, like she’d just orchestrated some grand scheme. 

Shaking her head at Charlotte, Leslie sighed. “Fine. But you owe me. Like, two good shifts. Morning ones.” 

Trish was already walking in the direction of her office. She managed to throw a rushed, “Yeah, sure. Thanks, again, Les,” over her shoulder as she disappeared behind her office door. With Trish gone, Leslie turned her glare on Charlotte, who just winked. She looked oddly giddy. “Try not to find any mysterious door, tonight, yeah?” 

“Try not to eat glue in your sleep,” Leslie shot back. But Charlotte was already gone, her laugh echoing down the hall like a warning. 

What a piece of work. 

By 10:55 pm, Leslie had re-shelved six boxes of laundry detergent, wiped down checkout lane 6 twice, swept up a glass jar catastrophe in aisle 3, and lost her will to live somewhere between freezer section fog and a customer asking if they sold goat milk in cans. 

Just kill me now. 

But something felt off. The store was quiet- too quiet. The kind of silence where you started hearing things that weren’t there. 

Leslie wiped down the customer service desk, her hands moving on autopilot. The fluorescent lights seemed to glow brighter. Angry, almost. Like a warning. She shook her head. “Get a grip, Les. You’ve closed out lots of times, before. Tonight isn’t any different.” Except that it did feel different. Something felt wrong. But she couldn’t place it. 

Leslie moved to the checkout lanes, next. The conveyor belts squeaked as she sanitized them. Then she rounded back to the customer service desk, and stopped cold.

Right there, lying in the middle of the counter, as though dropped from above, was a small, strangely-shaped key. Old, iron-wrought, with a twisting spine and a jagged tooth. It hadn’t been there a second ago. She was sure of it. Just like in Charlotte’s story. 

Leslie turned away from the desk, and turned back to face it a few seconds later. The key was still there. She stared for a moment, before slowly walking away from the customer service desk, and in the direction of the breakroom. Might as well just close up now, and head home, anyway. 

Leslie had barely made it past aisle 5 when she noticed the first off thing- the music. Instead of the boring, tinny “SmartSave, where you can’t beat the prices… the prices beat you”, that had been playing all day, the jingle playing from the overhead speakers was slower. Off-key. And the lyrics had changed. “SmartSave, where the aisles don’t end… and neither do you.” 

Leslie stopped in her tracks. Her stomach did a slow, sour roll. The voice was still cheerful, still robotic, but warped, like someone had dragged the audio file through a blender and hit play anyway. She looked up at the ceiling, half-expecting to see something physically wrong with the speakers- black goo, bleeding wires, Charlotte hanging from a vent- but there was nothing. Just that haunting jingle, looping again and again.

“SmartSave, where the aisles don’t end…”

She reached into her pocket to grab her phone. I’m not doing this. I’m calling an Uber. That’s when she felt it- cold and metallic. The key was in her pocket. 

Leslie threw it across the floor like it had personally insulted her. The lights above her flickered. Once. Then twice. Then stayed dim, humming low like a growl. Something buzzed in the PA system. Static. Then breathing. Then- “…Leslie…”

She backed away.

“Nope. Absolutely not. Not today, Satan.”

She turned and ran to the front of the store. And that’s when it hit her. 

The store had changed.

The shelves now ran diagonally, and they were taller now. Too tall. The aisles stretched impossibly long, bending left when they used to go straight. Products sat on the floor. The cereal boxes had no labels, just static where branding should be. And someone had propped up a mannequin in Aisle 9. She was 80% sure SmartSave didn’t sell mannequins.

The freezer aisle was fogged over entirely, condensation dripping upward. Upward.

Leslie’s breath caught. Her heartbeat pounded behind her eyes. The air smelled different, too. Like ozone. Like something waiting.

She grabbed her phone.

No signal. No apps.

Just one new icon: a grainy, red-and-black spiral labeled “Checkout.”

She turned toward the exit. Where the glass doors had been, there was now only wall. Tiled. Seamless. Like the doors had never existed.

Leslie took a shaky breath. “Okay. Okay, no. We’re not doing this.”

The lights buzzed louder. The kind of buzz you feel in your molars. A new voice came over the intercom. “Welcome, Leslie. We’re so glad you stayed.” Charlotte. Only… not quite Charlotte. Her tone was syrupy and hollow, like someone impersonating a person they’d eaten.

Leslie froze.

“Charlotte?”

No answer. Just the shifting sound of something breathing down the next aisle. She didn’t run. Not yet.

Leslie backed up slowly, one foot behind the other. Behind her, the rows of candy bars had grown longer. Just stretched, inexplicably, into a corridor. She turned, ready to toss the key and walk away. And found herself back in the middle of aisle 6. Except it was now aisle 13. And there were no other aisles. Just then, she heard a loud bang from where the breakroom was supposed to be. What now? 

Leslie took off, legs moving on instinct, cutting through what used to be aisle 4- but now looked like a meat locker. Frost climbed the walls in thick, fibrous patterns. Her sneakers squeaked against tiles slick with condensation. Fluorescent lights flickered violently above her, casting long shadows that didn’t match her movement.

She didn’t look too closely at the mirrors that had replaced the snack racks. They showed her reflection, but not exactly. One Leslie stared back at her with wide, terrified eyes. The other didn’t blink. The other grinned.

“Just get to the breakroom. Just get to the-”

She skidded to a stop.

The hallway where the breakroom should have been was there. But it wasn’t right. It was stretched, longer than it should’ve been. Like someone had taken the blueprint and pulled it like taffy. The walls pulsed slightly, like they were breathing, and something behind her whispered her name.

Leslie didn’t look back. She ran.

Her shoes thudded against the rubber flooring as she sprinted down the warped corridor, breath ragged, chest burning. But the breakroom didn’t get closer. In fact, it seemed to retreat with every step. Until-

She saw it. The door.

Nestled right where Trish’s office used to be.

Except this door didn’t belong to SmartSave. It was the door from Charlotte’s story. The one that wasn’t supposed to be real. Leslie’s hand trembled as she reached for the door handle. The frame pulsed faintly. A low hum vibrated from it, a sound just below hearing but deep enough to make her bones ache. Carved above it were words that hadn’t been there before:

EMPLOYEES ONLY.
NO EXIT.

Leslie’s hand twitched toward her pocket, and she cursed. The key. It was back. Cold against her fingers, like it had never left. Like it wanted this. Something wet scraped behind her. The sound of something crawling on all fours- too big to be human, too soft to be mechanical. A soft groan followed. Then a voice, low and familiar, but doubled like a broken tape:

“Leeeeeslieee… I can’t wait to see… how the story… ends…”

She didn’t turn. She couldn’t.

Trembling, Leslie fit the key into the door. The temperature had suddenly dropped to an icy stillness that bit at her fingertips.  The key slid in too easily, like the lock had been waiting. She hesitated- every cell in her body screamed don’t open it, don’t look, run– but there was nowhere left to run.

She twisted. The lock clicked. 

And the door swung open.

It was pitch-black inside. Not empty- just dark. Too dark. Like light itself refused to enter.

She stepped through. Behind her, the door slammed shut. Then vanished.

And in front of her, standing behind the front counter, was Charlotte.

Only it wasn’t.

Her face was wrong. Too smooth, too symmetrical. Like someone had tried to rebuild her from memory and forgot what real humans looked like. Her smile stretched too wide. Her eyes… didn’t blink. Her uniform was wrong, too. It was older, faded, like a version of SmartSave from twenty years ago. And her name tag didn’t say Charlotte.

It said Charlie. 

“Welcome to the end of your shift, Leslie.”

Leslie backed away, heart thundering in her chest. Behind Charlotte, on the wall, a mural stretched from floor to ceiling. A painting of SmartSave. But everyone in it was smiling too widely, their eyes black voids. In the center, was Leslie, arms raised like she was waving for help- or drowning.

Charlotte leaned forward. “Told you I could make it scary.”

Leslie stepped back. “No. No, you’re not real. You’re not her.”

“Oh, I’m not,” Charlie said cheerfully. “I’m better. She just opens the door. I’m what’s behind it.”

The lights in the office dimmed. The mural shimmered. The figures inside it moved.

Leslie turned and bolted.

She ran. Through aisles that kept reordering themselves. 

She turned corner after corner and finally saw it- the original breakroom. She ran in, and shut the door. It didn’t slam. It just clicked.

Leslie pressed her back to it, panting.

“Okay. Okay. You’re still you. You’re fine.”

She looked at the table. A key was sitting on it.

The same brass key.

She stared at it, then looked around. The posters on the walls were wrong- written in Latin. The SmartSave slogan read, “Et nos servamus animas.” We save souls.

On the whiteboard someone had scrawled in red:

STAY IN THE STORY OR STAY FOREVER.

She picked up the key, and walked back out into the store. She was determined now. Angry.

“Okay, you freaky knock-off Charlotte,” she whispered. “You want a finale? I’ll give you one.”

She made her way back to the mural.

Charlotte stood there again, but her smile faltered when she saw Leslie.

“Oh? You’re still fighting?”

“I don’t do damsel,” Leslie spat. “Rewrite that.”

She lunged forward, slamming the key into the mural itself. The wall screamed.

Not groaned. Screamed.

Then the mural shattered like glass.

The light exploded.

And then- 

Leslie woke up screaming. 

Her sheets were twisted around her like restraints. Her shirt clung to her skin, soaked through with sweat. Her lungs burned like she hadn’t taken a breath all night. The morning light through the blinds was pale and too bright, like it was trying too hard to be normal. 

It was just a dream, she told herself. Just a dream. 

She laughed; dry and brittle. Her alarm clock read 6:47 a.m.

She had work at eight.

She moved like she was underwater, tugging on jeans, tying her hair back, brushing her teeth without tasting the mint. She rehearsed the story in her head- how she was going to drag Charlotte for that dumb horror monologue. How she’d turned a goofy breakroom tale into a full-blown psychological spiral. She’d make fun of her for weeks. Maybe forever.

But when she walked into SmartSave, something was…off.

Everything seemed too normal.

The store buzzed with its usual Monday-morning limpness. That same tinny SmartSave jingle oozed from the ceiling speakers. Fluorescent lights flickered slightly overhead, like always.

She clocked in. Looked around. No Charlotte.

She scanned for that ridiculous blonde ponytail, that loud laugh. Nothing.

Marcus and Jeremy were chatting by the registers. Leslie walked up to them, tugging at her sleeves. “Hey,” she said. “Where’s Charlotte?”

Marcus blinked. “Who?” 

“Charlotte Higgins,” Leslie said, slower this time. “Six-foot Amazon with the world’s worst sense of humor?” 

Jeremy squinted. “You mean Shania? She works produce sometimes?”

“No,” Leslie said, trying to laugh. “Charlotte. She was literally telling a horror story in the breakroom yesterday. You laughed, Jeremy. I saw you.”

Marcus glanced at Jeremy. A flicker of something passed between them.

“I don’t think we have a Charlotte here,” Jeremy said.  Leslie’s smile faltered. She turned and headed toward the breakroom.

Guy. Guy would remember. He had to. He used to date her. She found him near the loading dock, knee-deep in a shipment of canned beans.

“Guy,” she said, out of breath. “Please tell me you remember Charlotte.”

He looked up, squinting. “Charlotte who?”

“Charlotte Higgins! Tall, blonde, loud. She worked night shift. You two were fighting yesterday.”

He gave her a half-smile. “Les, you’re describing like… three of my exes. You sure you’re not mixing people up?”

She stared at him, heart pounding.

“Don’t mess with me,” she said.

“I’m not,” he said softly. “You okay?”

She backed away. No. No. Something was wrong. She stormed to Trish’s office and threw open the door.

“Where’s Charlotte?” she snapped.

Trish blinked at her. “Who’s Charlotte?”

“Charlotte Higgins. Blonde. Built like Wonder Woman. She works here. She told a horror story in the breakroom. Yesterday.”

Trish frowned, fingers hovering over her keyboard. “Leslie… I’ve managed this store for seven years. I’ve never hired anyone named Charlotte Higgins.”

Leslie stood there, breath shallow, watching the words not land. 

She turned and fled down the hall.

Okay. Okay. Maybe this was a joke. A stupid, coordinated joke. Maybe everyone was gaslighting her. Maybe- 

She pushed into the breakroom. Diya sat at the table, scrolling through her phone.

Leslie slid into the seat across from her. “Dude,” she said. “That dumb story Charlotte told yesterday? It messed with me. I had the worst nightmare. I found the key. The door. And Charlotte-”

“Who’s Charlotte?” Diya asked, her brow pinched.

Leslie stared at her.

“You’re kidding. Right? Charlotte. Charlotte Higgins. Blonde. Massive. Campfire story energy. You gasped at the part about the key, Diya. Don’t you remember?”

Diya shook her head slowly. “I wasn’t on shift yesterday.” She shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

Guy entered the room, sipping an energy drink. “Everything good?”

“She’s talking about some Charlotte person,” Diya said softly.

Leslie stood. Her hands were shaking now.

“There was a Charlotte,” she whispered. “She worked here. She was real.”

Guy tilted his head. “Who’s Charlotte?”

Leslie ran. Back to the front. Back to Trish. Back to anywhere. But the world felt like it was closing in.

She shoved her hand into her coat pocket. Her fingers brushed cold metal.

She pulled it out.

The key. It was still there. Heavy and icy.

She looked at it like it could speak.

Her vision swam. Her ears rang.

She didn’t dream it. She didn’t.

But no one remembered Charlotte.

No one remembered her story. No one remembered her.

And in the silence of the breakroom, the intercom crackled once- then whispered, “Found you.” 

It was Charlotte. 

Saleah Yusuf is a Nigerian writer whose work spans fiction, poems, essays, and creative nonfiction. Her stories often explore the strange in the familiar, memory, and emotional inheritance. She is currently working on a collection of short horror stories.