A glimpse of hell at a gas station in Delaware

In some places, the fabric separating worlds is stretched too thin.

The territory was unfamiliar. On account of a bridge closure, I was flying blind, following a GPS, far off the course I had plotted on paper. It was later than I had hoped, the sun having long since set, the clammy autumn chill languidly descending upon the landscape. There can be a sweetness, a saccharine serenity, to the jet blackness of nightfall. A Romance, if you will. A purity to the darkness, when it plays stage to the starry host and the music of the spheres. But that darkness can go too far, and then it can be cloying. And then it can go too far again, and I don’t know the word for what comes after the cloying, but I know it’s nothing as remotely close to goodness as “cloying.” In a proper night, things become still; but some nights, things can get too excited. Jumpy, erratic deviations in the corner of your eye. Tricks of the light, shadows not quite seeming to follow the optical laws of occlusion. The sounds that remind you why some things are said to go Bump in the night—because some things do go Bump, on some nights. On those nights that go beyond cloying.

The day was done, and the day had been long. Frazzled meetings, frenzied business, but all mere busyness in the end. Another day, another dollar, and it was time to get outta Dodge. I was headin’ home. In pursuit of saving that day’s dollar, I wasn’t on the main drag with tolls; I was off on some old state highway, or maybe US highway. Doesn’t make a difference what it was. Because all it really was was godforsaken.

Gas tank ticked down to about a quarter or so; and my digestive system was grumbling about having some waste product it wanted to relocate. I had hoped to make it further out before stopping. The car still had about a hundred miles of distance in her, and I figured my secretory system could go a little while longer. So I passed a few specimens of that fine American tradition, the strip mall, with their parking lots as bright as noonday, the gas stations lit up like Vegas. I passed it all by and plunged ahead into the night.

Now the gas tank read about one eighth, and my intestines hadn’t slowed one bit. There hadn’t been an oasis of light and life—for are the two not one and the same?—for about an hour. I hadn’t the faintest idea where I was. Glancing at the GPS’ map, I was unnerved by the sheer emptiness around me. Abandoned light industrial, unkempt forest, swamplands, and the bizarre quiet. No sound at all, really, save my 2.3 liters of sound trundling along. The brow furrowed, the lips pursed, and the eyes narrowed slightly. I still had about fifty miles to work with: no need to worry.

After a bit longer, I crested a hill, and I saw it: a gas station and convenience store. The bigger kind of those stores, that sells various “fresh” fried foods, grease-drenched sandwiches, and every variety of prepackaged Little Debbie snack—even the rare ones. The place didn’t look to be in great shape, though. The asphalt around the pumps was in disrepair, with ruts carved out by the weight of, evidently, a lot of traffic. Or maybe just a little traffic, over a lot of time. There was no other civilization within sight, either. It was as if the station had been vomited up out of the surrounding swamplands. But I didn’t give much thought to all that. And the lighting was insubstantial, to put it mildly. The light over the pumps had the effect of a yellow brine smeared over a 20w lightbulb. And, of course, there was that dim background noise, the electrical popping, as one light flickered on and off seemingly randomly. But I didn’t give much thought to that either.

But I didn’t think about any of these things, or not really consciously, at least. My subconscious tucked them away for later analysis, I suppose. I pulled off the highway, gliding alongside one of the pumps, and came to a stop. The clenching creak of my parking brake ratcheting into place was suffocated by the amber malaise in the air; the sound noiselessly swallowed up like tinder in a hearty blaze. Get out of the car, pull out the wallet, fish out the credit card, and—huh. The pump’s not working. It’s busted. Well, whatever—I’ll head in, drop by the restroom, and move my car to try another pump. After all, no other customers are here, so I can just block this pump (it doesn’t work anyway), and—

And come to think of it, the whole parking lot is empty? Is anyone here?

Is what I ought to have been thinking, but I was thinking about my colon at that point. And the lights were on inside, glaring out through the dirty, advertisement-emblazoned windows, so obviously things were up and running. And you know how once you resolve to heed the call of nature, suddenly any reversal of that decision can seem a Herculean, if not outright Sisyphean, task.

The “Open” sign was on, after all. How could such a noble gas as neon lie to me? Of course, the gas wasn’t lying. It simply didn’t specify what in fact was open in that place.

I pull the door open and head inside. In front of me, a typical convenience-store-with-short-order-kitchen setup. A fryer, some griddles, etc., stuffed behind a counter which defends the cigarettes and chew from those pesky underage would-be enjoyers. All very normal. And look, right there, there’s the attendant. All is well with the world.

But the attendant was slouched forward in a chair, facedown with forehead planted on the low counter in front of—him? Her? I think him. But that’s weird, I thought; because from where the attendant is, he doesn’t have line-of-sight on the door I just opened. For I had only seen him after moving a couple paces from the door.

And it’s odd how the guy didn’t move or look up upon hearing me enter, much less my coming within a foot or two of him. Well, he’s probably looking at his phone or something—kids these days, etc.—so I keep walking towards that paradisiacal BATHROOMS sign. I look back at him as I pass, now that I have an angle to see over the Tobacco Defense counter.

There’s no phone in his hands. His arms are hanging slack at his sides. His body is still.

Now, at this point, I have said nothing about the atmosphere in this building, and only mildly commented as to that which permeated the outdoors. Allow me to redress that. More than anywhere else I have ever walked, including haunted old houses where gruesome murders took place and several other such sinister places—

This place, from the second I crossed its threshold, spoke Death. It did not scream Death; it did not snarl Death. No, it smirked Death. It, lazily, with a lick of the lips, calmly drawled, I am Death. As the door to the store closed behind me, I was already beginning to be deafened by an imperceptible refrain: You do not belong here. Pray be kind to me, however, and remember my colon. This was no time for psychologizing the situation when I was facing an impending physiological faux pas.

But, withstanding my colon crisis, when I saw those arms hanging slack, the whole body having an uneasy, unearthly sense of contortion, or bent-ness, to it—as though gravity were not quite behaving properly behind that counter—I dropped my right elbow down an inch or so, brought it close to my side, and—

Was met with nothing.

I glanced down in disbelief, adding visual proof to my tactile evidence that my right elbow was brushing my side, striking my belt, meeting no metal.

Delaware. I am in Delaware. I don’t have a gun on me because I am in Delaware and carrying a gun would make me a felon in Delaware.

The colon crisis could not be ignored. To the restroom.

As the crisis meets its resolution, I hear the door to the restroom creak open. Understandably—or perhaps not, but I hope by now you appreciate that some degree of, well, abnormality was afoot—I, unconsciously, hold my breath. The bathroom was large, after all. Whoever came in might not make it all the way down to me. There were six or seven large stalls, but given the circumstances, I am inclined to say six more so than seven. The line of them started about eight yards from the door. That which I had selected was penultimate from the end. There were four empty stalls to my left, one to my right.

The shuffling makes its way down the full length of the room, settling on that singular stall to my right. It was the handicapped stall, and thus abnormally wide. Because of the angles in play, I could no longer see his Nike-clad feet—but I knew that he could see me. The two knives I carry were both on my right side, and currently at my feet.

He did not sit down, much less use the toilet.

But it wasn’t just shuffling that made its way across the room to me. No, it was this smeared wall of sound, a ceaseless torrent of babble. (At the time, I thought it was some new strain of ebonics, but like before, my subconscious was filing things away for later analysis.) I could not discern even a single word from the phonic slurry filling the room. A sort of unspeakable horror, a consuming dread, was precipitating into every last crevice of my body. I sat perfectly still, silent as the grave, for more than a minute, muscles nigh unto exploding with unrealized kinesis. If you have ever listened to your heart thump at ~180bpm for over a minute in unshattered stillness, you will know that that is a long time. After a spell resembling a not insignificant fraction of eternity, I sprang into action and motion, generating what superficially were very mundane sounds (e.g. flushing the toilet), but which in that context were deafening.

Back down the length of the room—still no motion, only babel—turn on the sink—no motion—snatch a paper towel—babel—head for the door, pace quickening with every step. The ebbing and flowing, droning, babel.

I exit the room. I plunge ahead. On my right, I look over the counter again. The attendant remains, arms slack at sides, forehead adhered to counter. No change. The door is ahead now. I raise my left arm, battering the door open with the length of my forearm. My right arm is tense, lingering close to my side, ready to draw a pistol which is not there. Out into the asphyxiating amber light, which flickers once or twice—You do not belong here—and to my car. There are still no other cars at the pumps. As I start the car and throw it in gear, gas gauge still reading one eighth, head on a swivel, I realize that the parking lot is still entirely empty as well.

But then where did the shuffling babbler come from?

---

I have never heard a person Speak in Tongues. Whatever that sound is, I do not know; but I think I know what the opposite sounds like. And I mean the opposite: the diametric opposite.

The babble, the babel, which I heard, was neither pig English nor pig Latin. It was not a Romance language; it was not a Germanic language. It was not Chinese, or Japanese, or Korean. It was not Slavic. It was not any of the (handful) of African languages I have encountered.

And I do not believe that it was a language any man is supposed to hear, or ought to hear.

You do not belong here.