Two best friends, Sam and Josh, were walking late one night down a highway going out of town.
“Hey, let’s go over to that gas station,” said Sam, “I hear some weird stuff goes on there at night.”
“Really? What kinda stuff?”
“I heard from some people who went there last summer say that they heard strange voices behind the dumpsters; I also heard that things come out of the woods behind it, and sometimes, drink the gas from the pumps!”
“What! That doesn’t happen!”
“I don’t know Josh, I’m pretty sure it does.”
They both laughed.
Sam and Josh walked on the opposite side of the road from the gas station that was now coming into view; Sam stopped Josh, “There it is,” he said as they peered at it from down the road.
“How could those things happen?” asked Josh, “Wouldn’t the clerk inside see it?”
“Nah, I heard the guy who works there at night usually goes in the back and sleeps.”
“No one must get gas then.”
“Yeah, no one.”
The gas station was a block away; “What time is it?”
“About eleven-thirty; there it is.” whispered Sam.
They squinted at the small building being swallowed by the woods. The night was incredibly dark, and the blackness of it seemed to stain their vision, causing them to almost be blind.
“Let’s go over to that building,” pointed Josh at the small diner on their side of the road. “We can hide there until something happens.”
“Yeah, we can go behind the bushes and that sign.”
The two friends walked off the road and up a small hill to the diner that was now closed and very dark. Sam went and crouched behind the bushes and Josh knelt behind the small sign next to them.
“What time is it now?”
“Eleven-fifty.”
“Did those people say what time the things come out?”
“Yeah, after midnight.”
“What about the voices from behind the dumpsters?”
“Anytime after midnight, but before the things come out; because I remember them telling me that they heard the voices before seeing the things.”
“What did those people say the voices sounded like?”
Sam shifted around from behind the bushes, “They said it sounded like someone was talking in a language that they never heard of before, but out of place, like they heard it coming from behind the dumpsters, but it was coming from somewhere closer to them.” Sam looked through the bushes towards the gas station then back at Josh. “The people also said they sounded raspy and very dark; I remember them telling me that they sounded evil.”
“That’s insane.”
“Yeah, they looked pretty disturbed when they told me.”
“Wow...well it has to be about midnight now, what time is it?”
“Eleven fifty-seven.”
Two pairs of eyes stared motionlessly behind bushes and a sign out across the street to the illuminated little rectangular building immersed in a thick, dark-green forest that seemed to be alive and consuming the gas station.
”Eleven fifty-nine.” said Sam.
The intense white lights of the ceiling over the pumps beat down upon the parking lot and the front of the gas station, not flickering once.
“We’ll have a perfect view of it, those lights are so bright, it’s like it’s day over there.”
“Yeah.”
“What time is it?
“Still eleven fifty-nine.”
The friends looked and not even the lights inside the station were that bright, it looked very dim inside, almost black.
“How ‘bout now?“
“Midnight.”
Both of them stopped breathing as they looked unblinking from behind their hideout across the road to the small building nestled in a dark-green forest with the bright lights and long gas pumps. Their eyes shifted to the thick branches, groping out with green-leaved hands and thinning branched arms toward the dumpsters and back of the station, and over the lot toward the pumps below.
“Do you see anything?” whispered Josh.
“Nothing; what about you?”
“No; it has to be five minutes after midnight,”
“It’s twelve-o-seven.”
Sam shifted around from behind the bush, moving some branches out of the small hole of leaves he was looking through. “Shamesh.” The boys stopped and stared at each other. “Columeno strik manni.”
Sam’s face became blank, “Did you hear that?”
“Remmah coleth.”
“Tchak yennem koellits.”
“It’s the voices, it’s happening.” said Sam.
“It sounds like they’re coming from behind the dumpsters, but like they’re right in front of us.”
“Mentok ciklim house schemme.”
“Iglath sentenneck doorway kritzveth.”
“Kriss theckek yellez shemoohre shacki.”
“Wet exennex them to us.”
The friends stared from behind the bushes and sign out to the gas station. “I hear it coming from behind the dumpsters, but also like they’re on the road.” whispered Sam.
“I know; I don’t see any things that would be speaking them, either.”
“They’re just there; wait, did you hear them speaking in English? I heard them say some English words.”
“I heard them say house and wet.”
“I heard them say doorway and them to us.”
“Hacki zeckeniam.”
Josh turned his head around and stared at the diner. “I heard that come from behind us,” he said turning back to Sam.
“I heard it coming from both sides of me.” whispered Sam hesitantly.
“Sickle men.”
Sam and Josh heard cracking near the gas station and swung their heads over to see what it was. A thing came out of the woods behind the dumpsters, cracking the branches and ripping off leaves as it danced into the light. It had a horse’s snout with overly large teeth, a starved, gray body, and unequally-lengthed legs with arthritis-affected knees and hips.
Its horse snout had a thick, braiding smile, showing all of the large, spaced-out teeth which spoke all of that language.
Another thing came out of the woods.
It had a long, pointed face, ending in a large black beak, being indistinguishable from its black head, so the point where the beak started was not visible. The eyes were huge and bloodshot, and human. Its body was thin and like a semi-flattened pipe, as were its limbs. Black razor blades were for its fingers and toes, which it had four on each hand and foot.
It swayed to the other now near the pumps, swinging its long arms through the air in large, half-circles around its thin body.
The first twisted its braiding smile towards the second as it shook its head at a strange, diagonal angle--almost like a bow. The second grew a grin on its face and spoke more of its language as it approached the first.
Two unblinking pairs of eyes stared out from behind a bush and a sign.
The two figures stood there next to the gas station, in the painful white light of the pumps, having a loud but yet quiet conversation in their language--as it seemed to be heard by Sam and Josh. The things spoke with odd gestures of swatting hands and shaking heads; of massive smiles and grotesque figure. The two boys didn’t notice that their mouths were open.
Their words became louder into an eruption of hissing voices. They turned to the pumps and walked swiftly but slowly and unhooked one for each of them. Gas spewed out of the nozzle into their gaping mouths. It splashed onto their jaws and slid down their necks with no precision of direction. The first’s wrapped, veiny neck shook with every gulp of the dull, rainbow liquid that it forced from the pump  A surge of gas erupted and splashed onto its face, coating it in flammable bliss. It laughed at this, in its loud but quiet, hissing voice.
It showed the second this by spitting gas out of its mouth with every heaving cackle that came from its body; bringing its arthritis-laden shoulders to hook up and down. The second caught sight of this and drenched itself with the oozing hose, pouring it over its face and letting it seep down to its coal body.
Sam and Josh watched them play their game and drink their gas, but they became aware of something impossibly terrible that left them petrified.
The things spoke their language while drinking the gas. The boys heard them speak it, but did not see the things’ mouths moving as they shot the dull rainbow liquid into their mouths. The picture of them was unbelievable: huge, gaping mouths of unseen combinations of terror, full to the jaw of gas, but still able to utter their hissing voices with no moving lips or tongues or jaws at all. They just stood there, their backs bent backwards and their heads thrown back to receive the flowing stream of flammable soup.
Their necks gulped down the liquid and they lowered the pumps, them dripping a thin stream of gas on the stained pavement below. The things returned to their standing positions, gas seeping from their smiling mouths and dripping down to the concrete. They started to sway and slowly drifted through the pumps, smiling wide grins at each other as they went.
The first stepped with its arthritis-laden hooves on the gasoline-stained concrete, clattering dimly as it limped and stuttered. The second stepped with precise precision as if it knew already where each of its steps would take place.
They both reached the edge of the forest and turned back and looked at the bush and sign.