Chapter 5: The Circle K Clerk Knows Too Much

Chapter 5: The Circle K Clerk Knows Too Much

The fluorescent hum of the Circle K was usually a beacon of mundane comfort in the vast, dark emptiness of the desert night. Tonight, it felt like the antechamber to a madhouse. Eddie walked in not for coffee or a stale pastry, but for answers. Mort’s final, chilling threat echoed in his mind, a promise of permanent erasure that made the three brutal deaths he’d already endured feel like a slap on the wrist. He was locked out of the official channels, a liability to his own boss. That left him with one, single, inexplicable lead: the girl behind the counter who treated his sudden, violent materializations with all the alarm of a spilled slushie.

She was there, just as he knew she would be. Her name tag read ‘MAYA.’ Tonight, she was meticulously arranging beef jerky packets into a perfect, symmetrical display. She didn't look up as the bell on the door chimed, but he felt her acknowledge his presence. It was a subtle shift in the air, a quiet awareness.

“Back again,” she said, her voice a low, even murmur that didn’t carry much past the counter. It wasn't a question.

“Rough night,” Eddie said, walking up to the slushie machine. The cherry-red and blueberry-blue swirl was a nauseatingly cheerful sight. He grabbed a cup and filled it, the noise of the machine a welcome distraction from the pounding in his head. “Figured I’d… rehydrate.”

He placed the cup on the counter. Maya finally turned to face him, leaning on her elbows. Her dark eyes were steady and unnervingly perceptive, as if she could see the phantom bruises and the lingering terror clinging to him like a shroud. The constellation tattoo on her wrist seemed to shimmer under the harsh lights.

“You always look like you’ve had a rough night when you show up,” she observed, ringing him up. “Like you just ran a marathon through a meat grinder.”

This was it. His opening. “Yeah, well. The desert’s a weird place.”

Maya gave a small, humorless smile. “The desert isn’t weird. It’s honest. It’s just that most people aren’t used to that much honesty.” She slid his change across the counter. “What people call weird is just the desert having a fever. Sometimes it gets sick. And when it’s sick, things wake up that should be sleeping.”

The words hit Eddie with the force of a physical blow. Things wake up that should be sleeping. It was a world away from Mort’s sterile, corporate jargon of “spillovers” and “anomalous assets.” This was something older, more primal.

“You seem to know a lot about this… fever,” Eddie said, his voice low. He leaned in, dropping the pretense. “A lot more than a night shift clerk should.”

Maya went back to wiping down the already spotless counter, her movements calm and deliberate. “My grandmother used to say this land has a memory. Most of the time it dreams. But lately, something’s been giving it nightmares. And those nightmares are leaving splinters all over the place.”

Splinters. The word hung in the air between them. Eddie thought of the sharp, black shard Mort had confiscated, a piece of solidified nightmare.

“I found one of those splinters today,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “Out by the highway. It was attached to… something that woke up wrong.”

Maya stopped wiping. She put the cloth down and finally gave him her full, undivided attention. The bored clerk persona vanished, replaced by an ancient, weary seriousness that didn't belong on a face so young.

“Was it a tall one? Arms all twisted up, pointing at the sky like it’s begging for forgiveness it knows it won’t get?”

Eddie’s blood ran cold. “The Joshua Tree. How did you…?”

“They’re one of the first to get sick,” she said, her gaze distant. “They’re patient. They listen to the deep earth. When something down there starts screaming, they’re the first to hear it. The first to change.” She looked back at him, her eyes sharp, analytical. “You took the splinter from it, didn’t you? That’s why you showed up here looking like you’d been in a car wreck.”

It wasn’t a question. It was a diagnosis.

“Three of them, actually,” Eddie admitted, the memory making his chest ache.

A flicker of something—surprise? respect?—crossed her face. “Most people don’t get a second chance, let alone a third. Whatever you are, you’re stubborn.”

“I have a… flexible benefits package,” Eddie said wryly. “My boss, he just wants me to file reports. He calls the splinters ‘evidence annexes’ and hides them away. He thinks if he fills out enough forms, the fever will just go away.”

“Bureaucrats,” Maya scoffed, the word tasting like poison. “They think you can put a leash on a hurricane. They draw lines on maps and pretend the land cares.” She leaned forward again, her voice dropping lower. “My family doesn't file reports. We listen. We watch. And when we have to, we act.”

Here it was. The confirmation. She wasn't just a clerk. She was part of something else, a parallel system operating completely outside Mort’s jurisdiction. A tradition of people who didn’t need a phantom elevator and a cosmic entity to tell them their home was in trouble.

“So what are you hearing now?” Eddie asked, his heart hammering. “Where are the other nightmares?”

Maya was silent for a long moment, studying his face. He felt like he was being weighed and measured, his desperation and stubbornness laid bare under her steady gaze. He had the feeling this was a test, and if he failed, he’d be back to facing the horrors of the desert alone.

Finally, she seemed to come to a decision. She grabbed a napkin and a pen from beside the register. “The fever isn’t everywhere at once. It concentrates. It pools in places where the veil is thin. Old places. Places with a lot of echoes.” She began to sketch a crude map. “You know the old KNX radio towers out past El Mirage?”

Eddie nodded. A forest of skeletal steel towers, miles from anywhere, their warning lights blinking in the empty darkness. A local legend for make-out sessions and ghost stories.

“The broadcasts stopped decades ago, but the static never did,” Maya said, her pen scratching on the napkin. “There’s a lot of old energy out there. Voices, trapped on the airwaves. The sickness likes that. It feeds on it. My cousin was out there last week, said the static is starting to… harmonize. Starting to say words. He also said he saw something dark glistening in the sand near the main transmitter base.”

She pushed the napkin across the counter. It was a simple map, but it felt like the most important document in the world.

“Be careful,” she warned, her eyes locking onto his. “The thing that woke the tree up is just one symptom. The sickness itself, the source of those splinters… it’s smart. And it’s learning.” Her gaze flickered over him, as if seeing the invisible seams where he had been torn apart and stitched back together. “And it’s starting to notice you.”

Eddie picked up the napkin, the flimsy paper feeling heavier than a tombstone. He had a lead. He had a potential ally. And he had a brand-new target, one his boss would fire him for even looking at.

He left the Circle K with the slushie melting, forgotten, in his hand. The desert night stretched out before him, no longer just an empty space between towns but a landscape riddled with sickness and sleeping nightmares. Mort had drawn a line in the sand, forbidding him from crossing it. But Maya had just drawn him a map, showing him exactly where the treasure—and the monsters—was buried. The choice was simple. It had always been simple. He was never good at following the rules.