Your Local Home Improvement Store

Hopefully I’m not alone in this. I can’t be the only survivor of an after-hours incursion into my local home improvement store. So I hope to tell this story, my story, in order to bring us all together, maybe. God, it's all so insane to say and think about, it sounds like a dream but it definitely can't be since I made it out with a few others that fateful night. I haven't seen them around town in a while, and hope they’re all right. At this point I’m just stalling myself.

It was a late night in a town like any other in the midwest, which I’m just going to call Unnamed. I don't want anyone reading this to try and come here and experience this themselves. Not everyone’s luck is that same. But, it was a late night in Unnamed and I needed some tools, some wall patch, and some other items just for some stuff around the house. Those large warehouse-type stores always seem to be built like mazes, and I lost track of time but it must've been close to 9, because the doors closed and the intercom came online.

“I’m so sorry to each and every one of the customers still in the store. Jack’s Supply Shop is now closed and you will all be hunted until dawn. For your convenience the store opens at 7am every day of the week. Good luck and godspeed.” The man on the other end said.

Even though the fluorescent lights darkened slightly I still thought it was a joke. Me and several others continued on the way to the registers. I noticed the large cage door and rollup door were closed, but possibly they all wanted us to go out through the front door. The group of us stood around for a minute until one of the other customers, a tall and skinny guy wearing a black hoodie and red beanie, looked around a corner, when suddenly something pounced on him. He was tackled to the ground by something that used to be one of the employees. Crouched on top of him like an animal, the monster tore into him with sharp teeth.

Horrified, the rest of us screamed and retreated into the aisles of the store, looking for anything to defend ourselves with. Not long after, the store was filled with the terrified and agonized screams of other unfortunate patrons. Frozen in fear I crouched there, my back pressed against the racks of lighting fixture displays. I faintly heard three people talking about changing. On my hands and knees I slowly crawled over that way, only to peek my head out and saw two of the monster employees waiting for a regular employee to change into one of them.

“I know you have already seen Mother. The transformation is a part of you now. Accept that this is your life now and forever.” The one with the ponytail said, voice raspy and grating. She inched closer to the man and placed a clawed hand on his shoulder.

“James. You are part of the family. Become one with us.” A shorter, balding one said.

The regular employee cried for a minute before it seemed like his body was in agony. He writhed on the ground and a horrid cracking sound could be heard from him. His body looked like it stretched and his spine got longer, and curved more drastically. His arms moved in spastic motions until his forearms contorted and shaped themselves longer as well. Fingernails bled and were pushed out of their place by long thick claws.

He rolled over onto his back and clutched his face. His nose crinkled inwards and turned up, similar to the look of a bat. From what I could see, his jaw dislocated itself and sunk back into his skull and the gums protruded forwards, tearing at the corners of his mouth. All this before his mouth became filled with rows of long and pointed teeth.

I moved back into the aisle and the three of them dropped to all fours and darted off through the store. I faintly heard them say something about needing to find other employees. I figured that dressing like one of them was my best chance to survive, and hoped that I couldn't become one of those monsters. I tried to stay low and move quickly through the store, grabbing a long wrench as I moved past the tools. Moving towards the front of the store, looking for some kind of break room, one of the monsters jumped onto a customer. The monster employee went to bite, but the customer raised a box of rat poison pellets in front of her. The monster took a chunk out of the box and rolled off of her, rolling along the ground coughing and hacking, clutching its chest. The woman scooted backwards on her hands in my direction.

I gripped the wrench tight and ran in, bringing it down hard onto the head of the monster. And then again. And again. Again. Blood splattered all over my outfit, covered my hands and the wrench. Shocked at myself I dropped the wrench and stared at my handiwork. I got trapped in my own head for a while, honestly surprised that I wasn't killed in those quiet moments. I had just killed someone. Even though they weren't human when I did it…they were human before then and I just took their life. But even though I can justify it to myself as a fight for survival, which is true…you…you never really get over killing someone like that.

Once I came to my senses I turned around to look at the woman I saved. But she was nowhere to be seen. I hope she’s still alive somewhere around here. I grabbed the wrench again and stuffed a couple handfuls of those rat pellets in my pocket. I figured they'd come in handy. I helped who I could that I passed, but most of the non-monstrous people I saw and moved past were little more than piles of viscera. There were a lot of times I’m not ashamed to say I lost my lunch, honestly I don’t know if I'll ever be able to eat anything with red sauce and noodles ever again.

Behind the circular customer service register I found a short hallway that led to a bunch of other rooms. I didn’t see anyone back here, but out of five or so doors total, only one was closed. Optimism had me hoping that I could hide in there until morning. I slowly turned the knob and went inside, closed and locked the door behind me. It was a tiny room, the only light being the faint blue from the CCTV monitors. Closer than I had ever cared to be, there was an employee sitting in the chair in front of the monitors. Just staring. Whoever it was, they sniffed the air before turning around in the chair to face me.

“This area is off limits for customers.” It said before lunging at me.

I raised the wrench in front of me and it got caught in the monster’s mouth, giving me some control and not letting it bite down on me fully. Beady black eyes and mouth full of gnashing teeth, once human it was running only on instinct. Its clawed hands were dug into the wall next to my head, and I was thankful for these creatures having a very intelligent yet simple mind. I pushed with all the strength I thought I had, and shoved it backwards. While it was on its back foot I grabbed a pen or pencil of some kind and thrusted it down onto the monster's head, catching it in the eye. Writhing in pain and grasping at its eye, its free hand swung wildly, sending some of the monitors crashing onto the floor, along with files full of papers and other small items. Wanting to place a finishing blow I raised the wrench, but just as I brought it down, the creature slashed again and caught me in the abdomen. I beat the monster again, slamming its head into the wall with the wrench. It twitched for a short few moments but eventually stopped.

Exhausted and bleeding from my claw marks I collapsed onto the wall and slid down onto the floor. I took my shirt off and ripped it into a smaller piece, and tied it around my cuts. I never thought I’d see so much blood and skull shards in one night. Maybe it was different because I wasn’t zoning out but I watched as the unbroken parts of the employee’s body downshifted back into their human proportions. I’m not proud to admit it, but seeing as my shirt was being used as a makeshift wound dressing, I took the dead man’s shirt and put it on. Not a perfect fit, but there wasn’t much complaining I could do in my situation. I took his vest too, the nametag read “Gulliver.” Poor Gulliver.

Staring at the CCTV monitors I had the idea, now that I was in a relatively safe area, to call the police. With as much wanton murder happening in here, surely they had to respond and do something, right? Maybe I’d leave out all the crazy monster stuff. I wiped my bloody hands on Gulliver’s shirt and dialed 9-1-1.

“911, What’s your emergency?” The operator asked.

“I’m trapped in a hardware store, and all the employees are trying to kill us.” I said.

“Ma’am what is the address of your location, so I can send a police dispatch your way.”

“Um, I don’t know. It, it's just, it's the…the uh Jack’s Supply Shop in Unnamed. I’m pretty sure we only have one out here.”

The operator paused for a moment. “There’s nothing I can do, God save you.” The line went dead.

Tears welled up in my eyes. As much as I wanted to scream and wail, I knew it could possibly spell my doom. I cried as silently as possible for a while. Even with the growing stink of death in this room I passed out, whether from exhaustion itself or from my fresh cuts I don’t know. I’m still not sure how long I was out, but I awoke to the sounds of pounding on the door. I brought myself to my feet and stood in the center of the room without a plan. If it was another person, how long until some monsters followed them and we both died. If it was a monster, what could I do? How long could I hold out in this room?

My questions were answered as the door swung open to reveal a group of the employee monsters. One of them moved forward and smelled me, but noticing the vest seemed to have meant something to them. A soft chuckle wafted its way across them all, and their broken and torn mouths almost contorted themselves into a sly smile.

“Mother will be pleased.” One said.

“A wonderful new addition to the family.” Another said.

“This one already has the savagery within.” A third said, with a chuckle.

Two of them grabbed me around my upper arms, and led me through the store. As we passed through the aisles, there were others who were caught, and even some people hiding under and above the racks. My eyes might have caught them but I kept my mouth shut. At least they still might have a chance.

They took me to a room past the rooms in the back full of all kinds of boxes and other large products and down a stairwell into the basement. As we passed other monsters they joined in the posse. A veritable gang between me and any way out of this place. As we approached closer to whatever Mother was, the dissonant whispers and words of the group began to cease, as they all spoke the same words in the same cadence. They brought me to this strange pedestal and a small blob of some kind of goop rapidly grew in size. A shifting, pulsating mass of something like flesh but almost more akin to sludge. It swirled with blue and black and the occasional yellow or orange. An alien humming noise came from it before the orb began to swirl in an area that would be the center of the creature. Uncanny approximations of human mouths began to form out of the sludge.

“Welcome, my new,” The mouth it was speaking from sloughed off and fell back into the primary mass before a new one formed, differently sized from the last. “Child. I will open your mind to the vastness of my knowledge, and the knowledge of the other children.”

“What the fuck are you?” I said in horror and disgust. I struggled to break free of my captors before noticing that all the monster employees were saying the same things that their ‘Mother’ was saying.

“I am the remainder of the Mother of these cosmos. A cell of a dead and decaying god, you might say. Through my power, I unlock the way that you should have evolved. A hunting and killing creature, beholden only to me…not greed, not society.”

“No! You’re an abomination, you’re making us cannibalistic monsters!”

“Come now, don’t be like that. Hush now, my child, and accept the gift of submission. In due time we will take to the stars and I will regain my place at the center of the universe.” Mother’s swirling mass opened in the center, the black and blue spreading away to reveal the inner orange and yellow. The sludge sank back into itself, making almost what looked like a throat. Something emerged from underneath the sludge. A dark orange mass of flesh that looked to be a tongue, but it was covered in tiny barbs. From behind it a stalk with an orb shape rose out from the throat, where it came from I couldn't see. It reached out from the main mass, and the orb opened to reveal an alien eye. Shapes and colors, the likes of which I have never seen and thus can hardly think to describe flashed and pulsated in front of me. I have to assume this was the transformation process.

The monster employees looked to also have been entranced by this, as I felt the grib on my arms loosen. I dug my hand into my pocket and threw a handful of the rat poison into Mother’s gaping maw. It did the trick, as the barbed tongue lashed and whipped around, coiling around the eyestalk, tearing it from its anchor. It fell on the ground and disintegrated into a pile of goop. No sound came from Mother, but the multitude of employees were coughing and hacking and clutching at their throats.

I ducked between their legs and ran back up the stairs. Once I reached the other side of the door, I closed it and dropped a rack of items in front of it. Loud crashes and glass breaking could be heard but it didn’t matter. Taking the reverse path back through the store I headed for the front desk. I jumped over the counter, looking for any button that would cause the roll up door and the cage to open. Before I found it I picked up the phone that linked to the intercom and shouted into it.

“Anyone that's still alive, head to the front door. We’re getting the fuck out of here, now!”

I didn’t even put the phone back on the receiver, I just let it hang. I found the button, next to a ring of keys. The door started to rise, and I used the emergency button to stop it just a couple of feet off the ground, easy enough to roll under I thought. I vaulted the counter and unlocked the cage door, pushing it up as well. I went out into the main aisle and looked around for anyone. A couple of minutes passed and I wondered if I was the only one left, and thinking about how many were down in the basement, there would soon be a horde of clawed monsters coming straight for me.

I heard footsteps and looked up. Down from the other end of the store there were four people coming for the door. I yelled for them to hurry, and noticed a stray employee running behind them. It hissed and growled and dropped to run on all fours. It was gaining on the group and leaped onto a young woman at the back of the herd. I wanted to help, but they were too far away for me to make it in time. The employee crunched down hard on the back of her neck, and with as many teeth as they have it’s no wonder how it sent her head rolling. Normally, the employees would become engrossed in eating most of their prey, but this one quickly looked the woman up and down. It checked she was dead, before resuming the chase.

By this time, the other three of the group had caught up to me, and were squeezing underneath the door. Seeing the creature charging for the door I followed suit. As we all got to the other side, we all grabbed the cage door and pressed it down. No sooner did we do that, than the employee slid under the door and got caught part of the way by the door, which was trying to lock itself in place. The monster swiped with the clawed hand before its head, which were both on our side of the door. All the rage and sadness and disgust welled up inside me, reaching a breaking point. I went up to the thrashing creature and I screamed and stomped down hard on the back of its head. Over and over again until I was stomping nothing but red flesh and wet bone. More blood to clean out my clothes, covering my shoes and splattering onto my pants.

I breathed heavily but unlocked the automatic doors with the keys. And as the four of us escaped and felt the cool air of the night on our skin, every mask and facade dropped. The three of us women all dropped to our knees, hugged each other, and cried and screamed together for what seemed like an hour. The man that escaped with us did as well, but he stayed standing and bawled on his own, occasionally punching the ground and screaming into the sky.

When we all regained composure we all went to our separate cars. I could sense that even though it would've been better for us to exchange names and numbers, none of us wanted to even think about this night again. But it would've been too soon, we all had lasting damage both physical and mental from this ordeal. I wouldn't be shocked if all of us became paranoid and only ever left our house when the sun was up.

That night I went home and threw all of my clothes, and Gulliver’s shirt into a trash bag and got rid of them. It hurt getting rid of that bra though, because…honestly it was so expensive. I showered, trying to wash the blood off of me, both mine and others. Couldn’t tell which was which. I stayed there for a long time. Sitting on the floor of the shower, scrubbing my body with a pumice stone hoping it’d do something. I slept like the dead for a couple of days, calling out of work, and thinking that soon the police would show up at my door accusing me of killing not only the two “people” I did kill, but everyone else as well. How long before the security footage leaks, I thought. But that day never came. I’ll always wonder why. If the employees knew what they had done, how could they continue? Do they feel remorse, and are the actions they take all the fault of that mutating alien? Maybe they take the fall, and become the things that go bump in the night so as to protect others, if they submit themselves to the body breaking horror of the alien in the basement of Jack’s Supply Shop so that others don’t then…even to give their lives…

Months of paranoia ensued. I tried therapy, but no one is really trained to take anything I could have said that was the truth seriously. I’d rather not have to deal with four white walls. But either way, I’m writing this so that if anyone finds this and has had a similar experience, just know you’re not alone. Maybe if there are enough of us then we can take the fight to that alien mother, save the minds of those workers. You don’t need to know my name, just know that encoded in these pages, there’s a way that you can contact me. Remember to be wary of your local hardware store.