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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Fabulous-Bird-3018 on 2024-11-27 21:32:41+00:00.

Let me just start this by saying if you’re looking for a big confrontation or a satisfying conclusion I’m sorry but I don’t have one.

I am a junior in a university in a small town in northern British Columbia. The population is no larger than 200 people. It’s currently summer break and I’m working at the only grocery store in town as a stock boy to save up some extra cash for the upcoming semester.

The store was opened and ran by a local family called the McLean’s, the founder, Jim took over the store 30 years ago after the local superstore decided to sell it to the family after about 10 years of making no money. After Jim retired he left the store in the hands of his two sons Rob and Carl.

I think Carl handles the business side, accounting and marketing shit like that. But Rob is the day to day store supervisor. As an employee I almost never see Carl, the few times I have met him he seems nice enough if not distant and when he’s around Rob he gets quiet and looks extremely uncomfortable.

That isn’t out of the ordinary though, spend enough time around Rob and you’ll wish you hadn’t. It’s hard to describe but have you ever met anyone who’s really nice and polite on the surface but you look into their eyes and just feel deep unease for a reason you can’t quite put your finger on? That’s Rob.

The store is the only place in town where people (mostly senior citizens) can do their grocery shopping. The store itself is definitely the largest building in town but that’s not saying much since all we have to compete with is a gas station at the edge of our parking lot and a Chinese food restaurant that’s been there seemingly since before documented human history.

The rest of the town is just houses, sheds, a single baseball diamond and outdoor hockey rink. A few kilometres out of town is the sawmill that employs 95% of the population of our town. In fact my dad works there and his dad worked there and his dads dad also worked there. My father is utterly confused as to why I chose to go to a “fancy” general studies course at the University of British Columbia instead of taking up the family tradition of back breaking labour for 30 years straight.

The only claim to fame we have here is the murders that happened here a little over a year ago, not much has been released to the public because the investigation is still ongoing but word spreads like wildfire in small towns like this.

The few young people living here like to make their own theories because this is by far the most exciting thing that’s happened here since the town’s inception. I personally don’t like to talk about that stuff because frankly it freaks me out. The little information I know about the case is basically local legend and the occasional news updates on the store radio I hear from time to time.

There’s about 20 people total on staff at the store but that has dropped to around 15 in the last 3 weeks due entirely to people quitting. Some people left amicably and others not so much.

Now like I said Rob is a nice man on the surface and very patient with his staff when it comes to mistakes made while on the job. But he has been known to have an extreme temper at seemingly random things.

A story that first comes to mind is this girl used to work here a few months back. She was chewed out by the cranky old lady at cash one night over the price of some cat food and after the old lady left she called her “a nasty old bitch” to some of her coworkers and Rob overheard.

Rob then asked her to join him in his office and screamed at her so loudly the other workers at the front of the store heard every word of his unhinged verbal barrage. She left crying and quit a week later.

Something else that added to the bizarre nature of the exchange was Rob himself has called rude customers mean names all the time so why did this one crabby old lady spark such fury?

That’s when I really started looking at Rob differently and started picking up on weird behaviours that originally flew over my head.

But the last straw and what made me decide to write this story out was what happened last week. To give some context we are dead almost constantly, our busiest day is Saturday when everyone in town needs to do their weekly shopping and even then it’s not that bad.

Since it’s dead so often, me and the only other stock boy here Tony who comes in high more often than not don’t really put too much care into the displays and so the shelves are often a bit underwhelming. Rob doesn’t really care about the presentation of products cause we are the only grocery store in town why would we need to show off with immaculate displays or perfect shelving?

So it’s not uncommon going down the aisles that things will be in the wrong place or flipped around or whatever. That is except for one part of the store. We don’t really have a toy section but we do have an aisle of dolls. All kinds of them from Barbie dolls to raggedy Anne dolls.

This is the only part of the store Rob demands stays perfect. Every doll facing forward, lined perfectly with not a hair on a single doll’s head in the wrong place.

Last Wednesday we had maybe 10 customers all day, which is actually pretty busy for a weekday. With the harsh fluorescent lighting of the high ceiling and the same 3 radio pop songs playing over the loudspeakers all day while staring at the identical aisles over and over for 8 hours straight can drive a man to what I can only describe as hypnotic madness. So when I got to doll aisle I gave it a lazy once over and continued on.

A couple minutes later when I was at the brink of dissociation in the canned soup aisle I was shook out of my haze when I heard my name being screamed out as if they had just discovered me laying dead on the floor. It was Rob.

Seems that in my half asleep march I didn’t notice one of the dolls had fallen on its side on a shelf. It should have been sitting up like all the others.

When Rob pointed this out to me he gave me a look that made my blood run cold. His eyes looked like a hungry panther staring down a wounded deer.

“Do you wanna tell me what the fuck you think you’re doing?” Rob said never breaking eye contact.

“Oh sorry I must have missed that, let me fix it” I said shakily trying to get out of the situation as fast as possible.

I quickly reached over and tried to prop up the knocked over doll when Rob put his massive hand on my chest to stop me, pushing me back.

“Do you know that some of these dolls were made before you were born? And you come in here and disrespect them like this?” Rob said, his face getting redder with every word.

“Look I’m sorry I genuinely didn’t see that but you don’t have to shout it’s not that big of a deal, th-the rest of the aisle looks perfect.” I said, trying my best to calm him down.

He looked at me for what felt like 30 minutes with a cold stare as if he was going to wrap his massive hands around my throat at any second.

Then as if flipping a switch his mood completely changed.

“Ha ha no worries pal!” He gave me a pat on the shoulder that I think was meant to be friendly but was just hard enough to be menacing.

“Just make sure to keep an eye out in the future! Keep up the good work!”

He looked above me robotically and walked away without saying another word.

I was left there frozen in the aisle utterly perplexed as to what the hell just happened. I’ve worked customer service long enough to get used to being yelled at. I think anyone who has worked any form of customer service has had angry customers yell and swear at them and over time you just learn to get over it and laugh it off most of the time.

But the way Rob looked at me when he was yelling… to give you a better mental picture Rob is a huge man. He’s about 6 ft 7 give or take 300 pounds. Having him yell in my face was like a gorilla preparing for a brutal attack.

I stood in the aisle motionless for what felt like hours but couldn’t have been more than a few seconds when one of the cashiers, Holly walked up to check if I was alright.

“Is he fucking crazy?” She asked with a sympathetic yet angry tone.

“It… it’s okay I…I’m fine I think he’s just on edge cause a few people have quit these last few weeks.” I said as if trying to convince myself that this interaction was somehow normal.

“Ya I wonder why?” Holly added, smiling.

Holly always had a way to make me feel better, she had blonde hair and green eyes and looked straight out of a high fashion magazine.

After our nice little chat I didn’t see Rob on the floor for the night but I saw him in his office when I was walking to my locker in the break room after finishing up.

He was mumbling to himself something I couldn’t quite make out. But it looks like he was angry… not angry at me or anything but angry with himself.

Holly was in the break room grabbing her stuff right next to Rob’s office. I wanted to tell him off saying something like “you ever put your hands on me or anyone else I’ll kick your fucking ass!”

But who was I kidding, with one hand he could fling me across the room like one of his precious dolls. Besides I needed this job to save up for school so I don’t have to come back to this shitty store ever again.

So with gridded teeth I said; “goodnight Rob”

He turned as if snapped out of a trance and said “goodnight buddy see you tomorrow!”

I walked with my head swivelling back to my car.

Part 2:

Sometimes I give Tony a ride to…

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