The creature book 1

Growing up in Hillsdale Michigan there was never really much to do here. It's a smaller city with roughly 10,000 people. There's some bars,some fast food joints and some pubs in town but overall the town doesn't have much going for it. It's the kinda town people move out of and don't come back to. And the people that stay usually die in the home they grew up in and the house ends up abandoned afterwards. I lived in a small trailer in the outskirts of town. Lived there my whole life. My mom and dad raised me here.my dad worked at a local steel mill and my mom worked as a waitress at a local diner. We certainly were never rich but we managed to get by. When I was 18 and graduated highschool my parents saved enough money to buy me my first car. A 99 Honda Civic. Honestly although it wasn't special my parents got a great deal on it. Paid $1500 for it and it belonged to an old lady who rarely even drove it. Now I could get to my job at the gas station and wherever I needed to go. I would probably need to find a new job though at some point… the gas station didn't pay that much. And o boy would I need it. 3 weeks after they bought it for me they were killed in a motorcycle accident. They had gone out one spring evening on my dad pride and joy. His 1985 Honda motorcycle. The one nice thing he took pride in. Some drunk truck driver went through a red light and well … you can probably guess what happened next. The news was devastating but I had no time to grieve. If I wanted to continue to afford to live in my parents trailer I would need a better job. And as I expected my parents had no savings so I also had to pay for a funeral now. That night I was up late sitting on the couch and decided to look through our local job listings on indeed. There weren't many and the pay wasn't great for most of them. Not any more than what I made already. The steel mill where my father worked paid well but From his nightly stories at the dinner table it was a horrible place to work. Then I came to the final listing at the bottom of the page. Deaths department store night caretaker $35.00 hour. This caught my eye. I had completely forgotten about that store. Deaths department store was a large 2 story beige square department store a mile outside of town smack dab in the middle of a patch of woods. It had been built in the 80s in that dumb isolated location and was the only department store in town. It has everything except groceries and prescriptions. Despite being the only department store in town I never remember it being very busy. Hardly anyone was evee there. I used to go there a lot when I was a kid but haven't been in at least 5 years. I looked at the job description. Tidy up store, ensure nightly security, keep store organized… all the usual stuff. It seemed easier enough. So I clicked apply and submitted my application. I honestly never thought I'd even here back from them. So I set my phone down on the table and then went to sleep on the couch.The next morning I woke up as rays of sunshine pierced through the living room curtains. I looked at my phone and saw it was 8 am. I then saw there was a voicemail notification. I opened my voicemail app and listened.the man spoke in a thick southern accent “Hey this is Mr ransohoff the owner of deaths department store. I received your application and would like to discuss the job further. Give me a call back when you get a chance “ he left his number and hung up. I called him back immediately and to my surprise he answered the phone immediately “Hello?” He said “yeah hi this is Richard I got your voicemail. I'm the one who submitted the application “I said “ahh yes Richard glad you could call me back. If you don't mind stopping by the store id like to discuss with you the job in more detail” he said “yeah I can do that when would you like me to stop by?” I asked “well I'm here all day” he said “I'll be there in an hour” I said “sounds good to me” he said. And with that I hung up the phone and got up. I went and showered and dressed in some nicer clothes. Then headed out the door and got in my car and began the drive. It was only about 20 minutes from my house. Eventually I saw the sign for the store and turned into the driveway leading to it. It was such a weird entrance. The driveway to the store was 1 mile long and surrounded by woods suddenly opening up to the clearing the store was in. If it wasn't for the sign you wouldn't know it was there. The store isn't even visible from the road and I never understood why they built it here. It was like god just pushed aside some trees and dropped a building here. The clearing appeared and the massive 2 story beige square building came into view. The parking lot was mostly empty as per usual so I got a nice close spot and parked and stepped out. The building looked exactly like it did when it was built albeit now weathered. The other strange thing is this building had no windows at all. Except for the 5 glass panes surrounding the front door and the giant single glass window on the second floor that overlooked the parking lot it had none. It was just a boring cinderblock building. The sliding doors swished open as I entered. It looked exactly like it did 5 years ago. I doubt they changed anything. An obviously bored female cashier in her 30s sat at the cash register reading a magazine. I walked up to her. “Hi excuse me I'm supposed to meet Mr ransohoff here for a job interview?” I said without looking up she grabbed the desk phone and pushed a button. “Your appointment is here” she said and hung up the phone and didn't even look up at me. I stepped back from the register and waited. Soon a man that looked to be in his 40s dressed in casual pants and a casual shirt wearing a top hat walked up to me with a smile. “You must be Richard I'm Mr ransohoff the owner of this store it's great to meet you” he said enthusiastically as he shook my hand “same to you” I said. “Well are you familiar with our store?” He asked “yeah I used to shop here all the time as a kid. I know the floor like the back of my head” I said “well great. The floor hasn't changed at all since the store was built so I'll take you in the backrooms and show you the rest of what you haven't seen and give you a tour” he said. We walked through the mostly deserted store until we came to a large set of swinging double doors on the back of the store. We went through them and there was a large warehouse room with a singular office attached to it and bat doors on the back wall. “This is our stock room. You won't have to come back here very often but I'd figured id show you anyway. You don't have to worry about restocking anything out day crew does that in the morning as needed” he said. We then walked back out through the double doors and a little ways down the back wall until we reached an elevator. He pushed the call button and the elevator dinged and the doors open. We stepped in and he hit the button for the basement. The doors closed and the elevator started to descend. Eventually the doors opened. I was expecting to see a dark dirty basement but instead we stepped out into a long hallway. It seemed much longer than the store itself honestly. It was a bit strange. Lit by a long row of fluorescent lights it seemed like the kind of hallway you'd see in some scientific fiction movie. We began walking slowly down the hallway. All the doors were strangely on the left side“ door 1 is the utility room. You'll never have to go in there so don't worry about it. Door 2 is employee break room. There's a kitchenette with a fridge and microwave in there. Door 3 is the security office. You might need to go in here sometimes” he said. He opened the door and we stepped into a small room lit by a single florescent light. On a desk there were old computer monitors with blue camera feeds showing various parts of the store. They had to be original. Sitting in front of the desk a skinny older guy in his 40s wearing a baseball cap turned around. “Eric this is Richard Richard this is Eric. Richard here might be starting with us soon if he takes the job…and I expect he will” tom said with a smile. “Oh Im certain I will…and it's a pleasure to meet you Eric” I said as I shook Erics hand “same here” he said in a gruff voice and turned back around and watched the camera feeds. “Well c'mon let's go over the paperwork” tom said. I followed him back out of the office and to the next door on the left. As we were about to enter I looked down the hall and noticed a large set of metal blood red double doors at the end of the hall. I didn't think so much of it and figured ton would show me what was beyond them later. We entered into a large room with a conf table in it and a few smaller offices connected to it. We went into one of the smaller offices and I sat down in a chair across from toms desk. As I did it hit me… this basement seemed even larger than the building… it was so strange… not even laid out like The building above… tom sat down and handed me a folder of papers interrupting my thoughts. “Ok let's go over your basic job responsibilities” he handed me a paper. Tidy up the store,clean as needed, report faulty lights and broken items to maintenance.. all the usual stuff. He then handed me a red sheet of paper “now look I'll be honest these next set of rules will be a bit strange but you must follow them no matter what” he said sternly. I took the paper and looked over them. Rule#1 if you look out the giant glass window on the second floor at night and it's raining very hard don't use the water in the building during this time Rule #2 don't exit the building after dark for any reason whatsoever and keep the doors locked all night Rule #3 if you see red eyes along the tree line or here growling just ignore it and don't worry about it Rule #4 if anything bad happens don't call 911. Call me first and I will handle it Rule #5 this is the most important thing. No matter what you here coming from the red doors at the end of the basement hallway never go in there or near the doors. Don't worry about it at all. Entering this room is cause for immediate termination and other disciplinary actions I found these rules a bit strange honestly….but I learned long ago not to ask to many questions. Tom had me fill out all the paperwork for the job and even sign a waiver stating I agreed to follow the rules. I was set to start tomorrow night. So after filling out the paperwork and tom showing me around some more I said goodbye to him and went home for the day. I wasn't excited or thrilled about the job but I found it interesting so I would stick to it