1 The Creepy Gas Station Attendant Friday 7:36 p.m. The world through the windshield wasn''t as he knew it back home. Trees stood tall and dense, pitching perforated shadows over human-size carcasses cast to the side of the motorway. The rotting remains fouled pockets of the clean air ripping through the lowered passenger window, inviting big breaths that enlivened Oscar''s lungs. His mom steered their Corolla, Barcelona red, into the lot of a two-pump gas station. "Thought you said we''d make it on a single tank?" Nell killed the engine and unbuckled her seat belt. "It''s farther than I remembered.
" She plucked her smartphone from its mount, the GPS on its screen. "Just about an hour to go." She swung open her door. Both she and the car sighed. Standing, she stretched until she was up on her toes, then stuck her head back inside. "Get rid of the guts," she said, and slammed the door shut. "Why do I . ?" Oscar muttered to himself.
"I didn''t hit ''em." Groaning, he got out of the car and found a double-sided squeegee in a bucket of black water beside the pump. "Shouldn''t it be blue?" He pressed the spongy side of the squeegee hard against the yellow splotches of splattered guts on the windshield, bits of broken wings and leg segments sticking out of them. At least Nell hadn''t hit a deer. The dirty water didn''t cut through the sticky mess. The sponge smeared the splotches, making them worse. "Looks like the bugs get the last laugh." Nell shifted her gaze from the numbers spinning on the old pump before her to her son with the squeegee dripping at his side.
"You have to put your weight into it. Really scrub." "The car was shaking. Couldn''t you feel it?" "Keep trying." He motioned toward the bucket. "It''s black water. I have to pee." She rolled her eyes.
"Go. I''ll do it myself." Oscar tossed the squeegee back into the bucket and walked past the pair of pumps to where the station''s lot met the trees, no other buildings in sight. Head thrown back, he looked up at the impenetrable canopy of needles and leaves, the trees nearly as tall and compact as the buildings back home. He jumped at the sound of (footsteps?) something near him yet hidden within the woods. His skin prickled and chilled, rousing a feeling like sadness and a need to find the restroom fast. A bell''s ding announced that he''d entered the station, then the door rattled shut behind him. A man with a large, fleshy face, pale as milk in the spaces between raisin-shaped liver spots, slowly lowered the can in his hand and peered across the counter.
"Bathroom''s for paying customers," he said. Oscar paused, absorbing the situation, the place. Two rows of shelves stood to his left. A cooler. A coffee counter. A mini fridge filled with bait. The attendant, bald but for a greasy brown-and-gray fringe dangling along the sides of his head, leaned against the counter to Oscar''s right, his sweaty muscle shirt clinging tightly to his bloated belly. Flabby skin hung where his biceps should have been, and on his left arm was a faded pinup girl tattoo.
Wearing a loincloth and beaded moccasins, the topless girl had her hands behind her head, a headdress of feathers upon it. Oscar motioned toward the grimy window, his mother by the car, then, compelled by need more than nerve, went forth to find the bathroom. Once he spotted the single-seater in the corner, he paused and said, "What made you think I wasn''t going to buy something?" He turned, and his gaze met unblinking bug eyes, hazy, dull, and misaligned. They bore into him nonetheless. Oscar''s skin prickled again. He hurried into the bathroom and locked the door. Suffering the stink, he averted his eyes from the crusty toilet, brimming with more black water. Nell, her back to him, was paying at the counter when Oscar emerged a minute later.
"If you can hold it-" He came up behind her. She whirled around. "I''ll be right out." She moved around him, leaving Oscar staring into those unblinking eyes again. They were bloodshot. He could see that now. "Almost there," the attendant said. Oscar''s heart kicked.
"Huh?" "Almost there?" The attendant''s lower lip flapped. Oscar took a breath. Considering where he and his mother were going and why, he''d spent the ride imagining all the ghastly scenarios they might endure once they got there, but only if his favorite films were a reliable reflection of real life. The bug-eyed attendant could have been a character in one of those films. "We''ve got about an hour to go," Oscar said, and wished that he hadn''t. The man took a drink from his can, contemplating. "You must be on your way to-" The bell dinged. The door opened.
Excited voices poured in before all the bodies were inside the store. Five of them. Teenagers no older than Oscar. They went quiet as soon as the attendant, distracted from guessing where Oscar and Nell were headed, aimed his bloody eyes at them. Barely believing, Oscar took in each of the teens. The tall, ripped-as-a-fitness-influencer jock, whose sun-kissed skin was as golden as his hair, and who''d been blessed with a jawline capable of cutting glass. The hot blonde, wearing more makeup than a road trip required, her tantalizing curves protruding from the sides of her tank top and the fringed leg holes of her skimpy denim shorts. The free spirit, his face unshaved, his hair greasy, the smell of weed wafting off him, and his eyes as bloodshot as the attendant''s.
The girl next door, cute, conservatively dressed, her hair pulled back in a neat braid. And the valedictorian, skinny and smart, his glasses just thick enough to distract from an otherwise handsome face. While Oscar had been imagining the horror-movie scenarios he and his mother might encounter on their weekend trip to the Northwoods, he''d been reassured by the fact that the two of them together didn''t fit the movie-victim mold. This group of five, on the other hand-whether on their way to work as summer camp counselors or searching for an old family homestead-just might have reason to worry. Something, however, did set them apart from most other horror-movie casts. The free spirit was Hispanic. The valedictorian was Asian. And the girl next door was Black.
Tropes being what they were, she''d either outlast them all as the victorious final girl, or she''d be the first to meet her fate. "No, no," the attendant said when the free spirit and the valedictorian-the former a shade darker than Oscar, the latter a shade lighter-moved toward the shelves. "What''d you need?" "Won''t know until we find it," the free spirit said, proceeding between the rows of shelves. "Anyone want some turkey jerky?" The attendant stood straighter. The can clicked and creaked, the metal crumpling in his tightening hand. "Stay away from the beer cooler. I don''t care what your fake IDs say." The golden-haired jock flashed a killer smile and winked, his hand patting the counter.
"Never touch the stuff, big guy." The hot blonde giggled, laughing at the man in a way that would have wounded Oscar. "We just want some snacks and sodas." Her artificially innocent tone said something her words didn''t. Oscar cringed. The attendant''s floppy lower lip collided with the one above it, a soggy smack. He stood like a statue, only his eyelids moving, somehow opening wider, showing pink and red, painful in appearance. Oscar cringed again.
The blonde giggled some more, fake, and slipped a hand into the jock''s waistband as they turned to see what the station had in stock. "We''re not about to cause any trouble," the girl next door said, holding up her hands, surrendering herself. "Doesn''t mean you won''t find it. That''s how trouble works. You either cause it or you cry about it." The attendant leaned forward to look through the window at the convertible parked outside. "Your father''s?" "My mom''s," the valedictorian said, the key fob dangling from his hand. The attendant transferred his gaze from the window to the kid''s thick eyeglasses.
"Almost there." "What?" The skinny, smart kid stepped backward toward the door. The bell dinged again. "Almost there?" The valedictorian struggled to swallow. "Think so." "Are these made in the area?" The girl next door plucked a bag of kettle-cooked Wisconsin cheddar chips from a rack near the register. The words made with real wisconsin cheese were emblazoned on the bag. "Where to?" the attendant asked.
"We''ll give ''em a try." She set the bag on the counter. "Do you recommend any other regional goods?" Moving only his free hand, his eyes still aimed at the sweating valedictorian, the attendant slid a little brown brick across the counter, dairyland fudge printed on its label. "Who doesn''t like fudge?" Her giggle was far different from that of the hot blonde. Nervous. "This oughta get us through the rest of the ride." The jock butted the girl next door out of the way and deposited an armload of snack cakes, candy bars, energy drinks, and Cheetos onto the counter. "It''ll get us through the weekend," the girl next door said, peering over his shoulder.
The free spirit tossed a lighter onto the pile. Oscar glanced toward the bathroom. The door was still shut. "Where to?" The attendant aimed the question at the valedictorian again. "Here." The jock tapped a.