Fernando Martinez pulled into his new security job at ten-forty-five.
He walked into the warehouse, greeted the second shift guard as the man walked past, signed in, selected some snacks and drinks, then walked back out to the guard shack.
The shack was just a little one, there was barely enough room to spin around on the office chair inside.
But that was perfectly fine for him. There was a TV, which he muted, there were two windows, which he immediately opened, and an air conditioner, which he immediately made sure was cranked all the way up.
He watched the traffic drive past the building and wondered how frequently people would pull into the parking lot at this time.
Looking into the parking lot, he could see a few cars, and he didn't know if they were just here overnight, or if anyone was in the building right now.
He listened to the cicadas and smelled the freshly cut grass. This was the easiest job he ever had.
There was nothing going on for two hours before a semi carrying a shipping container pulled in. He wrote the truck and trailer number down as a man stepped out.
He signed the man's paperwork and handed it back. As the man walked back, Fernando signed his own copy and put it in the paperwork binder.
He just made like twenty cents doing that, no problem.
He kept his eyes on the man unhitching the trailer a hundred yards from the guard shack at the back of the parking lot; and on the main road fifty feet in front of the guard shack.
He drummed his fingers along the desk and sat back as the semi pulled out sans trailer.
It was a good time to patrol, so he grabbed the keys, closed the gate, and walked back to the warehouse.
The front of the warehouse brought him to the front office, which had no leaks in the bathrooms, nor were any of the fans on. There were never any problems like that here.
Or . . .
Well, this was his first night, of course he wouldn't know that . . .
He left the office, got on the golf cart, and headed down the warehouse. Going past all of the shelves of furniture was always boring, well, he assumed it would be.
Halfway through the warehouse the lights were off, he only had the headlights to go off of, and when he stepped out, only his provided flashlight.
But it was a good one, and he could see well enough.
He went out a back door, checked on a pump room, went back inside, then set off again.
The back of the warehouse had no light, but he already knew that. He saw some movement out of the corner of his eye and stopped suddenly.
Waiting, tense.
Then a cat that he hadn't known the company had slowly walked from under one of the racks.
"Hey, buddy," Fernando said, then continued his patrol.
He reached the end, went back to the front, and back to the guard shack; he opened the windows again and sat down.
His heart was racing, he noticed.
He wasn't afraid of the dark, but being alone was doing numbers on him.
An hour later, another container came in, and he went through the routine again.
After the man left, Fernando sat back and sighed. This job was incredibly simple, but it did get boring.
He turned the TV to an animal channel and un-muted it.
While the man on the TV was talking about a family of meerkats, another truck came in, and another pair of paperwork was signed.
Another patrol was in order, so he grabbed the keys, closed the gate, and walked back to the warehouse.
Everything was fine in the office, and he set off back down the warehouse with no issues.
After checking the pump room again, he couldn't get the cart moving, he hadn't noticed how slowly it was moving, indicating the low battery.
He looked down the long stretch of darkness that he still had to check, and felt a strange sense of dread.
He looked back to where he came from, the light back there seemed very bright now, very inviting.
But he was a man, he only needed his flashlight, so he started walking into the darkness.
Every glance down a row of racks brought a sense of ambivalence; each row was empty, that was good, but he had to look away from where he was walking, which was bad.
When he reached the end, he suddenly felt as if someone was behind him.
Fresh terror took hold. His heart racing, he said, "Hello?"
No answer, but he thought that he could hear breathing.
Fernando's breaths came in short gasps, he couldn't get enough air back here.
A fleeting thought came to his mind.
It's nothing, I already checked this earlier. Didn't I?
But he had assumed that the doors back here were locked, because the ones in front were.
He steeled his resolve, and turned around.
The news didn't garner much traction, a simple gas leak led to the death of a person and a cat.
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