The Last Register

The Last Register had been part of the town’s landscape for as long as I could remember. A sprawling, fluorescent-lit cavern of discount goods, it squatted on the corner of Maple and Third, its neon sign buzzing day and night. For four years, it had been my first job, and for four years, I’d worked the night shift more often than not. There was a rhythm to those hours, a quiet punctuated by the hum of freezers and the occasional clatter of a stray cart. But in the last few months, that rhythm had developed a dissonance—a series of notes that didn’t belong.

My partner on these nocturnal shifts was Arlen, a wiry man in his forties with a nervous twitch in his left eye. He’d been there longer than anyone, and he’d seen things. Or so he claimed. ‘It’s the old warehouse,’ he’d say, nodding toward the back wall. ‘They built this store right on the footprint of the old textile mill. People died in that mill, you know. Buried under the floor.’ I’d grown up hearing similar stories, but working there every night, I’d dismissed them as superstition—until I started seeing things myself.

The first sign was the shadows. Not the typical dark shapes cast by shelving units, but quick, darting silhouettes that slipped from aisle to aisle, always at the edge of my vision. When I’d turn to look, nothing was there. Arlen noticed them too. ‘Did you see that?’ he’d ask, his voice tight. ‘Just the lights flickering,’ I’d lie, even though the lights were steady.

The voices came next. They weren’t loud, more like murmurs woven into the hum of the building. Sometimes they’d sound like a child calling for its mother just before closing. Other times, they’d be the low murmur of a conversation, too muffled to make out. Arlen would stop mid-sentence, his head swiveling. ‘You hear that?’ he’d whisper. ‘It’s just the radio,’ I’d say, even though the radio in the back room was off. The voices seemed to come from the aisles themselves, as if the shelves were whispering secrets.

Then there were the footsteps. The unmistakable squeak of rubber soles on the linoleum, following a few paces behind us. The moment we’d stop, the footsteps would stop. When we turned, the aisle would be empty, the dust motes swirling in the muted light. We took to walking back to the front of the store with our backs to the walls, scanning every corner. But nothing ever showed itself.

Night 1: It was after closing. The last customer had left at 10:59, and I’d locked the sliding doors. Arlen was up on a ladder, stocking the top shelf in aisle 7 with boxes of instant noodles. I was doing a sweep of the store, checking that no one was hiding in the seasonal section. That’s when I heard it—a low, rhythmic thumping, like a heartbeat, coming from the floor near the beverage cooler. I froze, my own heart pounding in sync. The thumping grew louder, more insistent, and I could feel a vibration through the soles of my sneakers. I approached cautiously, ready to call out, but as I got closer, the sound stopped. In its place, a voice—clear and distinct—whispered, ‘Get out.’ I spun around, but the aisle was empty. Arlen was still on the ladder, oblivious. When I told him, he went pale. ‘It’s the ground,’ he said. ‘It’s not solid. There’s something under the floor.’

Night 2: Arlen was late. I unlocked the store alone, my hands trembling as I turned the key. The security lights cast long, distorted shadows. As I walked through the dimly lit aisles, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched. I reached the break room and switched on the lights, but they flickered, struggling to stay on. The radio crackled to life on its own, emitting a stream of static. Amid the static, I could make out a woman’s voice: ‘Smiled too much. Buried too deep.’ I slammed the off button, but the voice continued, as if coming from the walls. I fled back to the front, my heart racing.

Arlen arrived moments later, pale and apologetic. ‘Sorry, had trouble sleeping,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t believe the dream I had.’ He sat down in the break room, rubbing his temples. ‘I dreamed I was drowning in a pool of bleach, and someone was watching me from above, laughing.’ I told him about the voice, and he nodded grimly. ‘It’s getting stronger.’ We worked through the night, but every time we passed the beverage cooler, I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature. The footsteps followed us more persistently. At one point, Arlen spun around and yelled, ‘Show yourself!’ Only silence answered.

Night 3: We’d had enough. We decided to do a full sweep of the store, turning on all the lights, leaving no corner untouched. We even checked the back storage room, with its shelves of boxes and the old, boarded-up trapdoor that led to the basement. Arlen had always said never to open that trapdoor, that it was ‘locked for a reason.’ But that night, we felt compelled to check it. The lock had rusted, and when I pulled, it yielded with a groan. A wave of cold, musty air washed over us, carrying the scent of decay. We shone our flashlights down into the darkness, revealing a chasm of black. And there, at the bottom, we saw them—dozens of pairs of glowing eyes, staring up at us. They blinked in unison, then vanished.

We slammed the trapdoor shut and fled to the front. We didn’t speak, but we both knew we couldn’t return. The next morning, I called the manager and quit. Arlen did the same. The store closed a week later, and demolition crews were brought in. They discovered that the foundation was unstable, and when they tore up the concrete floor, they found a hidden chamber beneath the beverage cooler. Inside were skeletal remains, dozens of them, some with jaws open as if in mid-scream. The town officials declared it a ‘pauper’s grave’ from an old asylum that once occupied the site. But I knew the truth. The whispers weren’t from walls; they were from the dead, and they had been trying to warn us.

Even now, years later, I can’t walk past a dollar store without feeling a cold shiver, and I swear I can hear the faint thumping of a heartbeat under my feet. Sometimes, in my dreams, I’m back behind that register, and the shadows are closing in, and the voice whispers, ‘You forgot something.’ And I know, somehow, that I’ll never truly leave that place.