Chapter 1: The New Guy and the Banging Freezer

Chapter 1: The New Guy and the Banging Freezer

The air in Smiley’s Burger Emporium always tasted of three things: old grease, industrial-strength cleaner, and a faint, metallic tang like ozone after a lightning strike. For Alex Carter, it was the smell of survival. He wiped a hand across his brow, smearing sweat across his forehead as he stared at the fryer. The bubbling oil was the most normal thing in this place, and even it seemed to watch him with a thousand shimmering eyes.

His real lifeline wasn't the paycheck, meager as it was. It was the dog-eared, pocket-sized notebook he clutched in his left hand, its pages filled with his own cramped, desperate handwriting—a transcription of the official employee Grimoire. His fingers tapped a frantic, silent rhythm against its cover. Rule 3: Never let the grease drop below 350 degrees between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. The things that crawl up the drains dislike the heat.

He was in the middle of a mental recitation of Section 4: Condiment Etiquette, when the swinging kitchen door creaked open. Ryan, the day-shift manager, glided in. He wore a smile as bright and sterile as the fluorescent lights overhead, a smile that never, ever reached his cold, empty eyes.

“Alex! Just the man I wanted to see,” Ryan chirped, his voice a little too smooth. “We’ve got a new night-shifter starting tonight. Show him the ropes, will you?”

Behind Ryan stood a man who looked like he’d been carved from a block of weathered oak. He was in his late fifties, with a grizzled face, salt-and-pepper hair, and a worn leather jacket that looked more out of place than a health inspector. The man’s eyes, however, were sharp. They swept the kitchen, lingering for a fraction of a second on the strange, elongated shadow that always seemed to stretch from the grill, no matter where the lights were.

“This is Silas,” Ryan said. “Silas, this is Alex. He’s our resident expert. Listen to everything he says.” The manager’s gaze flicked to Alex, and for a heartbeat, the plastic smile tightened into something that looked more like a warning. Then, as quickly as it came, it was gone. Ryan clapped his hands together and exited, leaving a profound silence in his wake.

“So,” Silas said, his voice a low rumble. He picked up a stained spatula, testing its weight. “This is the place.”

“Welcome to Smiley’s,” Alex mumbled, his anxiety spiking. A new person was a variable. A dangerous, unpredictable variable. “First thing you need to know: the rules are everything. You follow them, you get through the night. You don’t…” He let the sentence hang.

Silas chuckled, a dry, rasping sound. “Got it, kid. Read the handbook. Lot of superstitious nonsense in there. ‘Don’t make eye contact with customers who pay in coins dated before 1945’? ‘Wipe counters in a clockwise motion only’? Sounds like something my crazy aunt would come up with.”

Alex flinched. “It’s not nonsense. It’s procedure.”

“Sure, kid. Procedure.” Silas sounded deeply unimpressed. He ambled over to the drink station. “So if I were to, say, put Diet Smiley Cola in a cup meant for regular Smiley Cola… what happens? The building explodes?”

“You get fired,” Alex said, his voice tight. “At best. Just… just read the notebook. Please.” He didn’t want to explain what had happened to Marco, the last new guy who thought the condiment rules were a suggestion. The memory of the high-pitched giggling from the relish dispenser was still too fresh.

For the next hour, a tense quiet settled over the kitchen. Alex worked with a frantic, focused energy, his every move dictated by the rules he had memorized. Silas, for his part, mostly stayed out of the way, observing with a look of detached amusement. He moved with the slow, deliberate pace of an old man, but his eyes missed nothing.

Then it started.

Thump-thump. Drip. Thump-thump. Drip.

A heavy, rhythmic banging echoed from the back of the kitchen. It was a wet, organic sound, like a side of beef being slammed against a steel door. It came from the walk-in freezer.

Alex froze, his blood turning to ice water in his veins. His hand flew to his notebook, his thumb finding the correct page without him even needing to look. His finger-tapping became a frantic staccato against his leg.

Rule 17: If a rhythmic, wet banging emanates from the walk-in freezer, ignore it. Do not investigate. Do not open the door until the sound has ceased for a full five minutes. The meat delivery can wait.

“What the hell is that?” Silas asked, frowning. “Sounds like someone’s trapped in the freezer.”

“It’s nothing,” Alex said, his voice barely a whisper. He refused to look at the freezer door, focusing instead on a stubborn grease stain on the floor. “Just the… compressor acting up.”

Thump-THUMP. DRIP. THUMP-THUMP. DRIP.

The sound was getting louder, more insistent. It was vibrating through the concrete floor now. A low, guttural moan seemed to thread itself through the thuds.

“Compressor my ass,” Silas grunted. He wiped his hands on a rag and started walking toward the freezer. “Someone’s in there.”

Panic seized Alex. “No! Stop! You can’t!”

Silas turned, one eyebrow raised. “Why not, kid? Afraid of a little noise?”

“Rule 17!” Alex blurted out, holding up the notebook as if it were a holy ward. “You don’t open the door! You just don’t!”

Silas looked from Alex’s terrified face to the shuddering freezer door and back again. He let out a sigh. “Look, kid. I’ve worked in kitchens half my life. Ninety-nine percent of the time, a noise like that is a busted pipe or a trapped animal. Probably a big raccoon got in.” He turned and put his hand on the heavy latch.

“Don’t!” Alex pleaded, his voice cracking. “Silas, please! It’s not a raccoon!”

Silas ignored him. With a grunt of effort, he yanked the heavy latch up. The suction seal broke with a loud hiss, and he pulled the massive door open, stepping into the frigid mist that billowed out.

The banging stopped instantly.

A profound, terrifying silence descended on the kitchen. Alex stood paralyzed, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. This was it. This was how it happened. He braced himself for the scream—the wet, tearing sound he’d heard whispers about from other, more senior employees. The sound that meant another name was getting scrubbed from the schedule permanently.

One second passed. Then five. Then ten.

Nothing.

The silence was somehow worse than the banging. Alex stared at the open maw of the freezer, at the swirling vapor, every survival instinct screaming at him to run.

Then, a shadow appeared in the mist. Silas stepped back out into the kitchen.

He was alive. He wasn't screaming. He looked… annoyed.

His leather jacket and shirt were splattered with a thick, foul-smelling substance. It was the color of crude oil but shimmered with a faint, sickly iridescence. It dripped from his hands onto the pristine tiles, a dark, viscous ichor that sizzled faintly where it touched the floor.

“Told you,” Silas said, his voice level as he wiped a smear of the black goo from his cheek. “Just a big raccoon. Nasty bugger. Got itself stuck behind the ice machine.”

He slammed the freezer door shut, the latch clicking into place with a sound of grim finality. He walked past a stunned Alex to the sink, turning on the tap and beginning to scrub the ichor from his hands. It didn’t seem to want to come off easily.

Alex could only stare. He stared at the new guy, this impossible old man who had walked into the jaws of death and come out complaining about a raccoon. He stared at the shimmering black puddles on the floor, the smell of burnt sugar and rotten meat now hanging heavy in the air. He looked down at the worn notebook in his hand, at the rule that had been his gospel, the rule that promised certain death.

The rule had been broken. The man who broke it was washing his hands.

And in that moment, the fear that had been Alex’s constant companion was joined by a new, more unsettling emotion: a terrifying, bottomless uncertainty. He didn’t know which was crazier—the monster in the freezer, or the man who had just killed it.