LAMONT GOODS. Food you love. Food for your family.
The slogan had been etched on banners and billboards all around town for years. Lamont Goods was your basic, run of the mill grocery store. The prices were fair. The products were good. The employees ranged from charming, professional adults to teens that didn’t give a single flying fuck about the job. The aisles were mostly clean and organized, but they had their fair share of bad days. The store sat at the edge of town, parked in front of a swampy bog that stretched for miles.
Lamont Goods was the product of Edward Lamont, a businessman and biologist. He founded the store in the late 1960’s and quickly attempted to expand. The expansion attempt was a success for years, the number of Lamont Goods growing to a dozen by 1981. However, from there, the stores would begin to close, one after another, getting beaten out by a number of growing grocery store chains until just one was left. And that Lamont Goods, the original, was still standing tall today.
Jess Whitehurst was scrambling into a pair of khaki pants when she heard her mother’s voice boom through the trailer.
“You’re gonna be late for your first day!”
Jess shook her head as the tight pants slid over her black panties. She knew she was going to be late, this was part of her character and always had been. Jess was a go with the flow type of girl and an avid napper. In fact, she could just about sleep through anything: storms, arguments, bumpy car rides, even a category four hurricane. Jess was a heavy sleeper too. And that’s why she was about to be late for her first day as a late-night stocker at the one and only Lamont Goods.
It wasn’t a glamorous job, Jess understood that. She took the job because she liked the hours it offered. 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. Monday through Friday. The hours were perfect for her and her night owl tendencies, tendencies that came to be due to the numerous daytime naps. She usually went to sleep around three in the morning, so the schedule fit the bill of what she wanted and paid extremely well compared to late-night fast-food jobs and cleaning jobs.
Jess had just turned twenty. Her life was very much not together. She was an overthinker and just about as lazy as anyone could be. Her high school days were filled with pot and getting into trouble, combined with poor grades, college was out of the question. She was a fuck up, through and through. Jess was trying her best to get her shit together. It started with this job. With money, she could buy a car and start to turn things around.
“I’m coming!” Jess yelled back at her mom through the thin, fake wooden walls of the trailer.
Jess threw on the Lamont Goods shirt; the only piece of uniform they gave her at orientation. It was grey cotton and sported the words “Lamont Goods” in a tacky, spirally cursive. She stuffed the oversized shirt down into her khakis and darted out of her tiny, messy room.
She spotted a lone banana on the counter and grabbed it with the quickness of an experienced food thief and planted a hard kiss on her mother’s temple.
“Fuckin’ A, Jess!” Her mother said as she had her hands deep in the sink, cleaning dishes.
Jess smirked and flung open the trailer’s front door, scarfing down the banana as she went. “Love ya,” she called to her mom as the doors closed.
The trailer park was a ten-minute walk from the store. The time was five fifty-five in the evening, which meant that Jess had to pick up the pace. Jess started with a light jog, but the humidity got to her quickly as sweat stains began to grow under the grey shirt. Jess examined herself as she slowed to a walk.
“Fuck it.”
She fast-walked the rest of the way.
Jess arrived for her first shift at three minutes past six. As she briskly walked into the store, she passed by a wall of missing persons’ photos. One of the worst things about the shitty city she lived in. People went missing and were never found. They probably ran away to get out of town, but who could know?
She was greeted by Toby, the store’s manager. Toby was about as ordinary of a guy that Jess could imagine. He had normal hair, a normal face, not too tall, not too short. Perfectly regular with no outstanding features.
He didn’t seem to mind her being a few minutes late. He better get used to it, she thought.
Toby skipped past the pleasantries and quickly got down to business.
“So, for the first four hours of your shift, you’ll have to navigate the customers,” Toby began as he and Jess walked through the back of the store.
There were boxes upon boxes of unopened products, stacked almost to the ceiling. Jess’s nose puckered as a strong chemical odor filled the air. Her and Toby’s shoes squeaked as they paced the floor, like it had been freshly waxed.
“Store closes at ten, so basically from ten to two is where you’ll get the bulk of the work done. The job is really simple. Just restock, put the new shit in the back, old shit up front. You’ll be doing dry goods, like cans and snacks. Bryan is the other dry goods guy. You each have three aisles you’ll be responsible for.”
Toby paused as they walked through a flimsy set of doors and into the store. There was generic music playing in the background that could just barely be heard, even though the store was dead.
“Sounds good to me,” Jess said as Toby showed her the three aisles that she’d be responsible for.
They then made their way to another aisle where Toby introduced Jess to Bryan. A big black man with an afro that looked totally absent. He wore gym shorts with dirty Jordans and a red Lamont Goods shirt that was heavily stained.
“S’up,” Bryan said as he stared at Jess, his mouth agape.
What the fuck is wrong with this fucking guy?
Jess and Toby made their way to the back of the store.
“Yeah,” Toby said, hanging on the word for a few seconds. “Sorry about him. He won’t be much help to show you the ropes, but he does a good job.”
“He’s not a creep or anything right?”
Toby shook his head. “He won’t bother you, promise.”
He showed her the loaded carts and reassured Jess that they weren’t expecting perfection from her immediately. “Just try your best. It’ll take a week or two to get the hang of it.”
“Anything else I should know?” Jess asked.
Toby slowly nodded as he crossed his arms and leaned against a stack of boxes. He seemed to be pondering how to say what he was about to say. His lips puckered slightly.
“Just one thing. At two, you leave. Don’t hang around the store.”
Why the fuck would I do that?
Jess nodded. She wasn’t planning on being at Lamont Goods any longer than she had to. There was an eerie seriousness in Toby’s voice that she hadn’t heard before. It sounded like there was more to what he was saying, but Jess couldn’t care less. She would leave at two.
Jess began stocking.
The time flew by, surprising her. It also surprised her that no customers asked her where anything was, because she in fact had no idea. She was having enough trouble figuring out her own aisle, let alone the rest of the store. Funny, she’d shopped here all her life, but when she tried to think of where to find something, her mind came up blank.
The carts seemed to never end. When she was finished with one, another was there for her to start. Jess’s back felt like death. She couldn’t remember the last time she did this much work.
Is this what being an adult is like?
If so then she was good. She’d just start an Onlyfans and make lonely idiots pay for pictures of her feet. This was too much.
Ten o’clock hit and Lamont Goods closed. The closing employees cut the lights to the front part of the store and half of the ones that lit the aisles. The dimness made Jess sleepy, but she’d heard somewhere that bright lights put a strain on night shifter’s eyes, making them even sleepier.
The last four hours were a drag, but she put in her headphones and knocked out twice as much work as she did in the first part of her shift. Toby was right about that.
About five minutes before two, Jess looked over her work. She still had two full carts in the back, but she felt a weird sense of accomplishment having knocked out a lot of the work. She guessed that she would come back tomorrow after all.
As she headed toward the back, she heard an alarm go off. She recognized the tone, as it was the same one she used. As she poked her head around the corner where the sound was ringing from, she saw Bryan getting up off the floor. He had been sleeping. Her eyes shifted to the pristine aisles. They were fully stocked. They were perfect. Bryan had mastered his art. Jess was somewhat jealous. If she could get to the point of getting her work done and being able to steal time, she would absolutely take it.
“Better get outta here before the lizard shows up.” Bryan’s soft and childlike voice did not match his body at all.
Bryan lumbered past her.
Wait. What the fuck did this dude say?
The lizard?
What was that supposed to mean?
Jess decided that Bryan must be a little slow. Or a lot slow. Which instantly made her feel like shit as she had the same job and that he had absolutely run circles around her.
It was time to go. Jess punched out on the computer and made her way to the employee exit at the side of the building. Bryan was already long gone.
As she eased through the door, she heard the gates of the loading dock opening. She glanced back and could swear that she saw Toby standing by the gates. His silhouette glowed in the moonlight that shone through the opening gates. The gates clashed as they twisted up into the ceiling and let out a metallic crunch.
It was Toby, she could see as he turned away from the light and walked back outside. Jess decided not to stay any longer. She was tired and Toby was probably just there to start operations for the day, or maybe receive some special shipment.
Jess went home and slept soundly. She woke up at two in the afternoon to a torrential downpour. She wanted to immediately go back to sleep, but she found herself unfortunately wide awake.
She decided to cook for herself, making a quick omelette with spinach. She was scarfing her breakfast down when a loud knocking pounded on the trailer’s door. It was still pouring rain. Who could possibly be knocking? It was Tuesday, which meant her mom was working at the diner. Maybe she came home early and forgot her key?
Jess opened the door with some nervous hesitation. As the door swung open, her gut turned. Did Bryan follow her home? That big creep. She should have known.
It was her neighbor, Susan, the old bitch. Maybe even a bigger idiot than Bryan. It tickled Jess to know that the woman was getting rained on. The old hag was completely soaked, her hair was stuck to her face. She looked like a wet dog. Jess stood there as she waited for the woman to speak. If this cunt thinks I’m inviting her inside, she has another thing coming.
“Have you seen Jeffery?” Susan said with a heaviness in her speech.
“Who’s Jeffery?”
“My brother. He usually hangs out around the gas station up the road.”
Jess was trying to think of who Jeffery was. Was she supposed to know him?
“The homeless guy?” Jess asked coldly.
Jess knew him well. He was nice. He panhandled at the Pump N Go. He looked like a typical homeless man: overgrown beard, long and scraggly hair, dirty clothes, fingerless gloves.
“Yes.” Susan looked down.
Jess shook her head. “No, I haven’t seen him.”
Susan looked like she was about to break. “He usually comes to my house for dinner. But I haven’t seen him in three days. He’s not a bad man, just made bad decisions.”
Jess nodded along. She just wanted the woman to leave. She was relieved when Susan began to turn away.
“If you see him, just let me know, okay Jess?”
“Okay.”
Jess spent the next few hours doom scrolling on her phone and praying the rain would let up. She still had to walk to work and an umbrella would only do so much.
Thirty minutes before six, the rain was still coming down. Jess got ready and dug around the storage bin that was tucked behind the couch, trying to find her umbrella. She found it and spent the next twenty minutes contemplating what to do. She didn’t want to trudge through the rain, but she was going to have to.
By the time she reached Lamont Goods, her shoes and the bottoms of her pants were soaked. The umbrella tried its best.
Jess’ shift went by like a train going off the rails. Her back was killing her and her mind was made up that this wasn’t a place she wanted to work for more than a few weeks. During her break, she perused the web for different jobs around the area. The best she could find was a dog walking gig and a job at a dry cleaner, neither paid as well as Lamont Goods nor offer the hours she preferred. Jess stooped down in a chair on her break, succumbing to her dreadful reality.
It was after closing. Jess stocked the end of an aisle, and carefully studied Bryan. He was like a well-oiled machine, no wasted movements. It looked like he’d been stocking the shelves for a century. His brain was on autopilot.
Jess thought about what he had said the previous night.
Better get outta here before the lizard shows up.
Her mind then flipped to seeing Toby at two in the morning. Jess was never much of a curious person, but there seemed to be a bizarre mystery occurring at Lamont Goods. Part of her wanted to find out what the lizard was, part of her couldn’t give less of a fuck. She decided to just ask Bryan.
“Hey, yo?”
Bryan continued stocking. Jess could hear loud rap music blaring from his earbuds from twenty feet away. She tried again.
“Yo!”
Bryan looked around the store, eventually finding Jess staring at him. He removed an earbud. “Talking to me?”
“Yeah. What did you mean last night? About a lizard?”
Bryan laughed and removed the other earbud.
“A little after two is when the lizard shows up.” He said it like Jess should obviously know what the fuck he was talking about.
“The lizard?”
“Yeah.”
“What the fuck does that even mean, dude?”
“Mr. Toby feeds the lizard, usually in aisle four.”
That was one of Jess’ aisles.
“Pretend I don’t know what ‘The lizard’ is for a sec. Explain that to me.”
“I dunno,” Bryan shrugged. “Just a big lizard that Mr. Toby feeds.”
“Like…like an alligator or something?”
“No. It walks around like me and you.”
Jess was trying to wrap her head around Bryan’s answers. Before she could speak again, Bryan had placed his earbuds back in and went back to work.
At a little past midnight, Jess could hear Bryan snoring. She examined his aisles to see that he was already done and passed out against a row of Lamont Goods’ branded soda.
“This bitch,” Jess said under her breath. Jess worked the remaining two hours as best she could. But she didn’t get as much done as the previous night. It didn’t bother her much, her back was killing her. She made a mental note to take Advil before her shift tomorrow.
Jess was heading to the back when Bryan’s alarm rang. The big man rose to his feet and lumbered away quickly, not saying a word to Jess. She clocked out after him and eased through the exit. She saw Bryan walking quickly down the foggy road. The rain had cleared, but a hazy dew stayed in the air. The night was dark and quiet, not even the crickets made a sound. The fresh rain left an earthy aroma hanging in the air. She loved it, it reminded her of her childhood somehow.
Jess began the journey home when the sound of the gates rising stopped her in her tracks. She made her way around the side of the building with serious hesitation. She wanted to get home, needed to get home. It was late and she was a young woman, with people going missing as much as they did, it simply wasn’t safe for her. And her back was torturing her. But her damned curiosity got the better of her. She had to figure out what this “lizard” actually was.
As she rounded the corner, she stopped, her mouth went agape. What she saw was far worse than a lizard.
It was Toby and his car, the trunk was open. He pulled a hogtied man out of it. Jess quickly ducked back behind the corner of the building, making sure she could retreat at a moment’s notice.
Jess’ mind took a moment to process the images she was seeing, but she soon realized that the hogtied man was in fact Jeffrey, Susan’s brother. She recognized the beard and hair, but the man had on no clothes. Toby began to drag the hogtied man into the store.
“What the actual fuck?” Jess whispered.
She had to find out what was going on.
Jess stealthily clung to the side of the building and eased into the back, catching a glimpse of Toby dragging Jeffrey into the main part of the store. Jess smelled shit and saw droppings on the ground as she scurried back into the store from the outside. Jeffrey must have shit himself. She couldn’t blame him, he must be scared, she would be too if she was tied up.
Jess was about to push through the doors into the main area of the store when a guttural growl pulsed out from the swamp behind her. She looked back, her eyes attempting to adjust to the darkness. A figure emerged from the trees. It was tall, nearly standing level with the high limbs. It walked human-like, with a slow lumber that rivaled a bear walking on its hind legs. The clouds of the stormy skies broke and the light of the moon pierced through, creating a beam of unreal visualization.
Jess gulped and her eyes watered as her legs and arms shook. She was having trouble processing the image her brain was seeing.
Out of the shadows of the wooded swamp, a creature appeared. Its scales glistened in the moonlight like diamonds. It looked ancient and primordial. The lizard flicked its tongue as its massive claws clacked back and forth, creating a horrid scratching sound that nearly made Jess sick. She quickly realized that she needed to hide.
Jess pushed into the store as quickly and quietly as she possibly could. She ducked down into a gap in the refrigerated units, climbing back into the shadows. When she looked into the store, she had a clear visual of Toby and Jeffrey. Toby was leaning over the man and doing something to him. It was only when he stood up that Jess saw what he was up to and it made her stomach churn. Jeffrey laid in the aisle with cuts all about him, Toby stood there with a small pocket knife in his right hand, it dripped blood onto the floor.
The doors to the back creaked open. The lizard was here.
Jess froze, her body tensed and her heart raced. She was statue-like as she prayed Toby or the lizard wouldn’t see her. As the ancient beast slowly trudged past her, her heart dropped. Seeing the monster up close was surreal. It appeared slimy, fresh out of the swamp. Its massive size caused her pulse to flutter. The thing’s head was the same height as the tops of the aisles and it moved with a hunch in its back. It hissed as it saw the bound man, its tongue swinging like a frog. The lizard paused at the sight of Jeffrey. Jess realized his mouth was duct taped shut.
When Jeffrey saw the lizard, he screamed through the tape. Jess could see the raw fear in the nice homeless man’s eyes. She remembered giving him five dollars when she was young, before she realized how important money was. Now, the man was tied up, naked with cuts all over him, about to be devoured by some lizard-creature-thing.
The lizard’s long, thin tail brushed the store’s floor and flicked back between the gap Jess was hiding in. It nearly struck her shins. The monster smelled putrid, like mud and death. Jess moved her hands and cupped her mouth and nose. Toby fled from the sight of the lizard to a point somewhere near the front of the store.
The lizard leapt on top of Jeffrey. Jess could see the blood spraying from the man and the sloshing sounds left nothing to be imagined. The lizard tossed one of Jeffrey’s severed arms back as it ripped into the man. The feast was over in less than a minute. The lizard rose up from its prey and Jess saw the remains. The thing had ripped out and eaten all of Jeffrey’s organs, leaving a visible rib cage in a mess of flesh and blood. The man’s head was gone completely, along with his legs and arm, the arm that wasn’t a few feet in front of her.
The lizard just stood in the aisle, the one that she was stocking just a few minutes ago. It turned around and walked right toward her. Jess cowered in fear, her heart thumped in her ears. She felt the walls closing in, her life coming to a close. The thing stopped just a few feet from her and leaned down, picking up Jeffrey’s arm that it tossed back. It then opened its mouth like a snake, the lizard’s jaw nearly unhinging. The arm slipped down the thing’s throat. It swallowed it whole. It then turned back around and walked back to the eviscerated remains, standing over them triumphantly. It stood for what seemed like an hour, but when Jess checked her watch, it was only seventeen minutes past two.
Toby then rounded the corner and nearly fell over when he saw the beast, like it was a shock, like he wasn’t the one that let it in.
“What are you still doing here?” he exclaimed.
Jess wondered if the thing would speak in return. It did not. It just stood there and stared at Toby. Jess could see the nervousness in Toby’s eyes. She could see it in his body language as well, the man shook like a scared kitten.
“I don’t have anyone else for you. N-n-n-not tonight,” he stammered.
The lizard simply cocked its massive, alien-like head. The thing swiped its whip-like tail and smacked the cans on the shelves. They flew all about, a few of them hit Toby. It then lifted Jeffrey’s remains with one arm and stuck the body in its mouth, gulping the corpse down like a snake. Toby shuffled backwards, nearly tripping over his own feet. A foot hung out of the lizard’s mouth, as it shit out a stream of jet-black liquid from a small hole just below its tail. Jess let out a cry that was muffled under the sound of the liquid pelting off of the store’s tile.
Toby brushed blood away from his arm that was cut by the barrage of cans. The lizard’s tongue flicked, the thing was over a foot long.
“No—no don’t,” Toby cried.
The lizard was excited at the sight of fresh blood. Jess realized that must have been why Toby cut up Jeffrey. She also realized that she needed to get the fuck out of there. And fast.
Toby attempted to run, but the lizard moved with otherworldly speed and was on Toby in an instant. Its claws clacked on the tile like a raptor’s talons.
It grabbed Toby by the throat, gazing into the man’s fearful, dilated eyes. Toby cried, tears flowed down his face and dripped onto the lizard’s scaled fingers.
Jess decided to move while the thing was distracted. She also didn’t want to witness another brutal feasting. She paralleled her body, easing through the gap. But she gasped when a jagged piece of metal caught her thigh. It sliced through her khakis and deep into her skin. Blood spurt from the wound like a slashed carton of milk, oozing from her body with ferocity. She felt the warm liquid pump down her leg. The burning sensation caused her face to contort with discomfort.
She covered her mouth as she froze, completely out of her hiding spot and in the open now. Her eyes fixated on the monster.
Jess could hear the thing sniffing, like a humongous dog searching for a treat. Toby’s eyes saw her and he reached his arm out toward her, pointing at her, guiding the lizard. It quickly snapped its head and laid its dinosaur-like eyes on her.
“Fuck,” Jess said.
The lizard tossed Toby to the ground like he was paper. It turned its attention to the bleeding new prey named Jess. She tried to run, but faced the dilemma of pain. Her jog became a limp within a few awkward steps.
“Don’t run, Jess. Just—just let it happen.” She heard Toby call from the distance as the thudding stomps and clicks of the lizard grew ever closer.
She couldn’t outrun it. She had to come up with another option to get away. She picked up her pace, fighting the scorching sensation of the slash in her leg. She quickly darted down one of Bryan’s immaculate aisles, the lizard a short distance behind her. Jess looked out into the front of the store, seeing the reflection of the creature in the freshly cleaned windows. She screamed as she turned the corner.
Jess locked eyes with Toby, who was still sitting on the ground.
“What the hell are you doing?!”
Jess grabbed her wound and let the blood soak into her hand. As she passed by Toby, she rubbed the crimson liquid into his face. It coated his stubble as he gagged.
The lizard took the bait. It bore down on Toby, tearing and ripping the man’s flesh. Jess continued to move. Pacing back to the back of the store and limping outside. She cried as she made her way through the loading dock and outside. She just wanted to go home. This night had been too much for her. She could see therapy and copious amounts of drugs and alcohol in her future.
As she limped into the dark night, she looked back and saw the lizard reemerge from Lamont Goods. It lumbered toward the swamp, its scales shining in the moonlight. It walked slowly and looked overstuffed, its gut protruding like a beer belly. As quickly as it came, it was gone, disappearing through the trees and back into the marshlands.
Jess sobbed as she hobbled down the wet streets. With Lamont Goods still visible in the distance, Jess knew one thing was certain. She was for sure going to have to find a new fucking job.
