If you’ve ever worked the overnight at a gas station, you have gas station horror stories. Drunks, drive-offs, a guy who tried to pay with a live crawfish. Mine is about the phone calls from “corporate” that kept asking me to step outside. I’ve swapped gas station night shift stories with a lot of clerks since, and nobody has topped it.
In 2017 I was twenty-three and working the 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift at a gas station and convenience store off a state highway in north Alabama. It was the only thing open for fifteen miles. Truckers, hunters, kids from the county high school buying energy drinks. After 1 a.m. it was mostly just me and the hum of the coolers.
My manager, a tough older woman named Charlene, had one big rule for nights. She told me on my first shift and made me repeat it back.
“You don’t leave this building after midnight. Not for trash, not for ice, not for nothing. If something’s wrong outside, it can wait for the morning girl. And if you got to step out for a real emergency, you lock that front door behind you.”
I thought she was being dramatic. I’d worked nights for eight months and never had a problem.
The First Call
It was a Tuesday in February. The phone behind the counter rang at 1:40 a.m. The landline. That phone almost never rang at night.
A woman’s voice. Friendly. A little bored, the way people at corporate always sound.
“Hi, hon, this is Denise with district. I’m doing a routine equipment check on all our overnight stores. Can you do me a quick favor and read me the temperature on the ice chest out front? There’s a little thermometer on the inside of the lid.”
I knew we had a district office. I’d never talked to anyone from it. It sounded normal. Corporate is always asking for some number for some report.
I remembered Charlene’s rule, sort of. But the ice chest was right outside the front door, maybe ten feet away. I told myself that wasn’t really leaving. I locked the door behind me anyway, went out, lifted the lid, read the little thermometer, came back in, locked up.
I told Denise it said twenty-two degrees. She said, “Perfect, thank you, hon,” and hung up.
The air outside had been cold and smelled like diesel and wet pine. I remember thinking how dark the edges of the lot were, past the lights over the pumps.
Farther From the Door
Two nights later, at 1:50, the phone rang again.
“Hi, hon, it’s Denise. Sorry to bother you again. I need you to check the lock on the propane cage. Just make sure it’s latched and tell me the number on the tag.”
The propane cage is on the side of the building. Around the corner. You can’t see it from the counter. It’s maybe forty feet from the front door.
I said okay. I locked the door, walked around the corner, checked the lock, read the tag, walked back. I was quicker this time. I didn’t love being around that corner where nobody from the road could see me.
Denise said, “You’re a lifesaver.”
The third call was the next week. Same time, almost to the minute. 1:45.
“Hi, hon. Last one, I promise. I need you to go around back and check that the dumpster lid’s closed. We’ve had a raccoon complaint.”
The dumpster was behind the store. All the way back, by the tree line, where the lights from the lot don’t reach. You’d have to walk along the whole dark side of the building to get there.
I hesitated. I said, “Can it wait for the morning shift?”
Denise said, “It’s just a routine check, hon. Takes two minutes.” Very calm. Very patient. “I need it for my report tonight.”
I said hang on. I put the phone down on the counter.
And for some reason, before I went, I looked at the security monitor.
The Worst of My Gas Station Horror Stories
The store had six cameras. The monitor under the counter showed them in little squares. Pumps, register, front door, side of the building, back door, and one at the back corner that showed part of the dumpster.
In the dumpster camera, in the dark beside the dumpster, there was a man crouched down.
He was wearing dark clothes. He was very still. He had something to his ear. A phone.
I picked up the store phone again. Very carefully. I could hear Denise breathing. I said, “Okay, I’m going out now.”
On the camera, the man stood up. He moved closer to the corner of the building. The corner I’d come around.
I hung up, locked the register, went into the back office, locked that door, and called 911 on my cell.
Then I scrolled back through the camera recordings while I waited. My hands were shaking so bad I could barely work the mouse.
The night of the ice chest call, there was a man standing at the dark edge of the lot, past the light, about twenty feet from the ice chest. The night of the propane cage, he was crouched behind the air pump, right around the corner from the cage. I’d walked past him.
Each time, he was a little closer to where she sent me. Each time, he was holding a phone to his ear.
He was practicing. Seeing if I’d come out. Seeing how long I’d take. Seeing if I locked the door.
Seeing how far I’d go.
After
The sheriff’s deputies got there in eleven minutes. The man was gone. They found tracks in the mud by the tree line, going back toward an old logging road.
By the dumpster, they found a cheap prepaid phone that had fallen in the leaves. The call log showed the store’s number, three times, on the three nights Denise had called. There was also a roll of duct tape lying next to it.
Charlene came in at six. She called district while the deputies were still there. There was no Denise. Nobody from district had ever called any of the overnight stores for equipment checks. Charlene said, very quietly, “What did I tell you about leaving this building?”
I quit that week. They never figured out who either of them were. The deputies thought the man and the woman were working together. One on the phone, one by the dumpster.
That was seven years ago. I work in a dentist’s office now. Days. Lots of people around.
Last month, my cell phone rang at 1:45 in the morning. Unknown number. I don’t know why I answered it.
A woman’s voice said, “Hi, hon. Just a routine check.”
I hung up. I didn’t sleep. And the next night, I turned my phone off at midnight, and I’ve done it every night since.
For more horror stories with a twist from people who work while you sleep, read the night shift hotel horror story about a 3:10 wake-up call, a 911 dispatcher horror story about a call from inside the building, or our Facebook Marketplace horror story about a buyer who wanted something from every room.
Share your gas station horror stories
If you’ve ever worked the overnight shift at a gas station, you know how far away the edge of the lot feels at 2 a.m. Share your gas station horror stories, or any scary short stories with a twist from a night job you’ll never go back to, in the comments below.
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