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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/beardify on 2026-05-26 19:38:53+00:00.

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Ever since I was released from prison, I’ve only worked the night shift. Whether it was because this kind of lonely drudge-work was the only employment I could get, or whether it was because I secretly like it, I couldn’t say. By now, I’ve stopped wondering.

The world after dark suits me. With the streets empty and most businesses closed, there’s no one to turn me down for a rental contract or a loan, no need to explain to anybody why I can’t attend university or vote. The day people have their world, and me, I’ve got mine.

I didn’t expect to hear back from the warehouse gig, but I had to try something. I was sick of the meat packing plant where I’d been working, sick of my boss’ high-pitched whiny voice and the smell of freezer-burned blood in the air. A.I. filters usually rejected my applications the minute my conviction was flagged, but a few nights later, I received a call.

The man on the other end of line introduced himself as Mr. Clemmons. He told me his company had received my application and that, as far as he was concerned, I was as good as hired. I could meet him after the last shift to begin my “trial period” and fill out the paperwork. I sighed and launched into the part of the interview process I hated the most: the part where I reminded my future boss about my criminal record to make sure that it wouldn’t be a problem.

Instead of answering, Clemmons asked if I’d really committed the crime I’d been found guilty of. When I told him I was innocent, he just laughed: “That’s what we all say.”

At ten PM on the following Friday, I met Mr. Clemmons at the warehouse’s rear entrance to learn about my new position. He was a beefy fifty-something guy who wore too much cologne and smiled like a used car salesman while he talked. He showed me around the custodian’s closet and pointed to a pair of headlamps on the wall.

Each of the areas I was expected to clean was on its own circuit breaker, but I would need to use the headlamps to move around the warehouse floor. The main lights were kept off overnight, Clemmons explained, in order to save power. A security guard patrolled the grounds, but my shift began before his and ended later. Given how big the place was, it was unlikely that the two of us would even see each other.

Two breakrooms, four bathrooms, eight offices, and one basement. If I could clean all of it in six hours, I could take home my minimum wage paycheck and do it all again the next night, six days per week. Before he wandered off into the gloom of the parking lot, Clemmons wished me good luck and said he hoped I remembered to bring some spare batteries for the headlamps.

I couldn’t tell if he was joking.

The offices were all white walls, gray tile, and particle-board furniture. Apart from emptying trash cans and a little light dusting, there wasn’t much to do there. The first bathroom was another story. Its floor was sticky with dusty gray bootprints and what I hoped was spilled soda; there were dead flies and hardened snot encrusted onto most of the sinks, and what I found in the last toilet stall made me grateful for the industrial-strength chemicals I’d been given to work with.

With my nose full of the reek of bleach, I moved on to the main warehouse floor. The darkness and the sheer scale of the place made me feel like I’d stepped into the belly of some enormous deep-sea creature. Apart from my two headlamps, the only source of light was the glow of the emergency exit signs on each wall of the building. Between them, the tall metal shelves seemed to stretch on forever. The air was stale and tasted like cardboard. It took me nearly twenty minutes to cross the warehouse floor. During all that time, I didn’t hear a single noise apart from my own footsteps and the squeak of the cart’s wheels.

The quiet was unsettling, but it wasn’t dangerous–at least, not in the way that prison had been. I mopped another bathroom, wiped down the tabletops and microwave of the first breakroom, then headed back across the blackness to the next assignment. I finished in just under four hours–or so I thought, until I remembered the basement.

I realized that I had no idea where it was located. Clemmons hadn’t told me, and my other work areas were so obviously placed that I hadn’t thought to ask. There was a faded blueprint pinned to the wall of the janitor’s closet, right beside an out-of-date calendar and some nudie magazine photos from the eighties. I ran my finger across the building’s plan: no staircases, no second floorplan, no other level. No basement–

“Two breakrooms, four bathrooms, eight offices, and one basement.” If I closed my eyes, I could hear Clemmon’s thick Alabama drawl inside my skull. There was no doubt that he’d mentioned it. I felt panic tightening my chest.

So far I had overcome my criminal record by being a model employee, but if I was fired after my first day on the job, all of that work would be for nothing. It would be back to the bottom of the barrel–if I could find any work at all. I thought of other ex-cons I knew, guys with bodies beneath their belts who’d been important behind bars, but who now lived beneath underpasses and shook cups at strangers for spare change because they didn’t want to risk jail time again. All it would take, I reminded myself, was a little bad luck. And maybe this was it.

I wished that I could ask the security guard, but I hadn’t seen the guy since I’d arrived, and there was no time to wander around looking for him. My only choice was to return to the warehouse floor and hope that I could find the basement entrance on my own. It felt like stepping out into empty space. Before long, the beam of my headlamp could no longer reach the warehouse walls, leaving me alone among all those endless metal shelves. Although I was moving in a straight line, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d taken a wrong turn somewhere. But even if I had, all I had to do was walk backwards and eventually I would find the door I’d come from…right?

I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. A staircase? A large metal trapdoor? Maybe even an elevator?

I heard nails scratching across the concrete behind the shelves to my left. I figured it was probably rats. Just about everywhere I’d worked the night shift had them, but no tiny glowing eyes stared back at me when I turned to check. The further I walked, the more I thought about that sound. It reminded me of dog claws in need of a trim, but Clemmons hadn’t mentioned anything about a guard dog. Ten minutes later, however, I still hadn’t seen anything that looked even remotely like a basement entrance–

Or an animal.

Something else was starting to worry me as well: as huge as the warehouse was, my headlamp should have revealed the opposite wall by now. Not even the glow of its emergency exit sign was visible. I walked a little faster– And that was when I noticed another light to my left. It seemed to be coming from the center of the warehouse–

and from the floor.

I hurried toward it with a smirk. I wouldn’t be done early, but at least I’d have the job finished on time. The closer I got, however, the more my smile faded. The warehouse floor was concrete, but the staircase in its center looked like something out of a suburban home: beige drywall, tan carpet, a white-paneled door at the bottom. That was where the light was coming from. I gulped, unhooked a bucket of cleaning supplies from my cart, then headed down the stairs.

I reached out for the brass door handle, then hesitated.

I did not want to know what was on the other side of that door.

The hair on my arms and the back of my neck stood up; the tension in the air felt thick enough to cut. It reminded me of certain feverish nights back in prison, the kind where you knew something bad was about to go down, even if you couldn’t explain why–

And that was the reason I kept going.

Too much was riding on this job for me to turn back just because I had a bad feeling. According to my watch, I had less than two hours to clean up whatever was down here. I took a deep breath and pushed through the door. An ugly green-and-brown plaid couch. Brass lamps, a couple wooden chairs, shelves with little porcelain figurines. A tall clock stood ticking away the minutes in a corner. If I had been standing in someone’s grandparents’ house a few decades ago, it might have made sense…but not fifteen feet below a warehouse floor.

There were no footprints on the mold-colored shag carpet, no candy wrappers, empty cans, or other signs that anyone had been down here recently…and yet the place felt unmistakably lived-in, as though whoever or whatever called it home had left for a moment but might be back at any time. Two other doors, identical to the one I’d just opened, stood on the walls to my right and left. As I moved deeper into the room, it was hard not to imagine the closet monsters from my childhood hiding behind one of them.

I figured I’d start with the room on the left. The water in my bucket sloshed uncomfortably with every step I took: apart from the ticking of the grandfather clock, it seemed like the only sound left in the world. I was reaching for the handle when I heard a creak. I hadn’t imagined it. The white-paneled door on the wall behind me had opened just a crack; there was only darkness on the other side.

I shouted “Hello?” But it came out as a dry whisper. Of course, there was no answer. The lights were off in the next room, but I was rel...

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