What Stalks the Lot
I have worked as a security guard at the local hospital for three years now. Most of the time, the job is pretty straightforward. You sit in a booth, watch the monitors, make sure the doors are locked, and do rounds to keep the nurses safe as they walk to their cars. It is a quiet, reliable paycheck. But lately, things have changed. I work the graveyard shift, usually from midnight to eight in the morning. By 4 AM, the hospital parking lot is a massive, hollow space. The lines are faded, the pavement is cracked, and the streetlights hum with that annoying, flickering buzz. It is isolated. The lot stretches all the way out to the tree line where the dense woods begin, and that is where the trouble started. It began about three weeks ago. I was doing a perimeter check in the golf cart when I saw something near the edge of the woods. At first glance, it looked like a deer standing in the shadows. I paused, thinking it might wander onto the road, which would be a hazard. But as I watched, the figure didn't graze or walk away like a deer. It stood up. It straightened its spine until it reached about seven feet in height. My heart skipped a beat. The way it stood was all wrong—it was rigid, jerky, and unnatural, like a marionette being pulled by frantic strings. The moonlight caught its skin, and I remember thinking it looked exactly like wet, rotted wood. It didn't look like fur or flesh; it looked like bark and damp earth. I felt a cold chill run down my spine, but I told myself I was just tired. I went back to the guard shack and tried to focus on the screens, but I couldn't stop thinking about that silhouette. A few nights later, I was patrolling in my own car because the golf cart was being charged. I decided to drive toward the back of the lot near the woods again. I felt stupid, but the curiosity was eating me alive. I drove slowly, my headlights cutting through the heavy, stagnant air. When I reached the spot where I had seen it before, I slammed on the brakes. There it was. It didn't bolt. It didn't even flinch. I turned on my high beams, flooding the area with white light. The creature stood right at the tree line, its posture stiff and wrong. Its skin really did look like saturated timber, dark and gnarled. Then, it turned its head. I saw them clearly—glowing, yellow eyes that seemed to have no pupils, just two burning embers staring directly at me. I tried to back up, but my body wouldn't cooperate. I felt this strange, physical pull, like an invisible rope was attached to my chest, dragging me toward the dark trees. It was the most terrifying sensation I have ever experienced. My hands were locked onto the steering wheel so hard that my knuckles turned white, but my feet kept trying to press the gas pedal forward, wanting to drive me straight into the shadows. My mind was screaming at me to stop, but my muscles were betraying me. Then, a loud, high-pitched buzzing sound filled the car. It was like a swarm of angry bees inside my skull. The frequency was so high that my teeth actually began to ache, a sharp, throbbing pain that radiated through my jaw. Panic finally snapped me out of my trance. I stomped on the brake, threw the car into reverse, and floored it. I didn't care about traffic laws or the speed limit in the lot. I just drove. I kept my eyes glued to the road ahead, refusing to look in the rearview mirror until I reached the safety of the hospital’s front entrance. I sat in my car for twenty minutes, shaking and breathing hard, waiting for my heart rate to go down. I felt like a fool. I told myself it was an hallucination caused by sleep deprivation. The next day, I decided to check the footage from my dashcam. I knew what I saw, and I needed proof. I hooked the camera up to my laptop at home. I watched the screen with bated breath, waiting to see the creature, but the screen showed only an empty parking lot. The high beams were on, illuminating the grass and the trees, but there was nothing there. I felt a wave of relief wash over me, until I turned the audio up. As I listened, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. A voice—raspy and low, like dry leaves skittering on pavement—whispered my name. It sounded like it was sitting right next to me in the passenger seat. Then came the sound of claws, long and sharp, scraping slowly against the metal of my car door. I shut the laptop and pushed it away, sick to my stomach. I went into work the next day and requested an immediate shift change. I spoke to my supervisor in his office, trying to keep my voice steady. I told him I wasn't feeling safe out there at night and asked to be moved to the day shift. He didn't even look up from his paperwork. He just chuckled, a dry, dismissive sound that made my blood boil. He told me that there was no room on the day crew and that I needed to stop letting my imagination get the better of me. He said we have a job to do and told me to get back to my post. Now, I am back here. I am sitting in the dark of the guard shack, staring at the monitors. The hospital is quiet, the nurses are busy inside, and the parking lot is vast and empty. Every time I see a shadow move, my chest tightens. I know that thing is out there, waiting in the treeline. It knows my name now. I am just counting the hours until the sun comes up, knowing full well that eventually, the sun will go down again, and I will be back at my post, waiting for it to come back for me.