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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/GuyAwks on 2026-05-27 09:35:15+00:00.

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As unfairly hated as flyer distributors are by many people, I’ve learned that some of them truly deserve the hate. In fact, some deserve even more.

I should know—I was one of them.

Over the course of just a week, I did many small, terrible things. And from this, I was forever changed for the worse.

Not too long ago, I was strapped for cash. I had bills to pay after being randomly let go from my last menial position, rent, utilities, food—all of that. My days consisted of scouring the Internet for job listings, mass applying to whatever random roles I could easily submit my resume to. I was hardly discriminating in what I applied—after the first few rejections, you open your net pretty quickly.

That’s the process that led to me accepting one of the most unenviable jobs out there.

I barely even remember the online job listing for the gig, I’d applied to so many. But I got an email back from the manager, followed by a short video interview about my past sales and face-to-face experience. It wasn’t particularly selective, and the guy really just seemed to want to know that I was a people person and not bad to look at.

With this confirmed, the job was mine and I grittingly accepted it.

I’d never imagined myself having a despised job. The closest comparison would be ticket inspectors I saw on public transport, who now looked like angels compared to the annoyance I’d be putting people through. Little did I know that it would be far more than annoyance I’d be handing out…

It was explained to me by Horace—the guy fronting recruitment and training—that the company I was working for was subcontracted by other businesses to distribute flyers, with information and discounts. My work at Zestprint would simply be getting the word out there for other companies—the worst I thought that would come from it was wasting trees for paper.

I was starting on the ground floor, but it didn’t occur to me that I was also a pawn in a much larger, eviler game.

At the start of my first week, I showed up to meet Horace outside a cafe in the city—the bustling area I’d be stationed at. He looked even more handsome and charming in person, and I was impressed to see that he was around the same age. This was belied by his sharp navy suit and expert white smile, which indicated he’d worked in this role for a while.

Grinning, he handed me a stack of flyers promoting a new sale at a hardware store.

“Just hand out these leaflets to every passerby and let them see your shining character, that’ll pull them in!” beamed Horace. “These little deals we’re offering will go a long way for the recipients—trust me.”

The flyer pile was decently thick, about the size of a printer paper stack, but small enough at A5 size for me to hold comfortably. As I gathered the bright, sleekly designed papers together in my hands, Horace’s energy darkened slightly, though his smile remained.

“Remember the rules, Mike. All those flyers need to be distributed by the end of the day, or your pay will be cut” he warned. “It’s strictly one flyer per person. And don’t get any ideas about dumping them out in a trashcan in the alley nearby, eh?.”

He added that last part with a playful chuckle, but I knew he was anything but jovial about that outcome. Horace made no pains about conveying that, if I destroyed or ditched that pile of papers, he’d know it.

I already understood that this wasn’t someone to be played with and this wasn’t a job I could just hack by taking the easiest route. I certainly wasn’t gonna risk cutting my already meagre paycheck by pulling a fast one.

“Got it, of course not” I assured Horace, eyeing his own sophisticated getup in contrast to my own. I’d tried to dress appealingly in a button up and chinos, but I still looked grubby in comparison to Horace. Well, that’s why he was the guy in charge, and I was harassing people on a street corner.

With those words, Horace wished me luck before leaving me to distribute the flyers.

Before this, I had never really had social anxiety and was normally fairly extroverted. But despite this, I still found it to be a daunting experience handing out the flyers to people that day. Most citygoers that I encountered on that sidewalk would try to avoid making eye contact with me or would step away when I went to hand a flyer to them.

Some would flash me apologetic looks or give a hushed “No, thank you” sheepishly. A handful of these nicer folk would even take a flyer out of pity. Even fewer people would take one out of sincere interest in what said flyer advertised. Predictably, I saw a few chuck their recently obtained flyers into the nearby bin after initially taking one.

Well, as long as there wasn’t a whole pile in there, it would be obvious to my boss that I’d at least tried distributing them. I couldn’t get in trouble for that, at least.

Then there were less pleasant cases who would get angry with me and return swear words to my offer of a handout. This experience on the street corner grew more common as I tried to verbally entice people to take the flyers.

“Would be be interested in thi-”

“Sod off, prick!”

Good day to you too, sir.

The end of the day was drawing nearer, and I still had a lot of my pile left to distribute. So, I started adding little exciting comments to my sales technique, mentioning the great savings and offers pedestrians would get from the flyers, if they just took one. Because of this, more people ended up taking a flyer. Somehow, I managed to finish handing out the stack before the day’s end.

By the following day, I was starting to warm up to my new role. Now I was handing out discount promo flyers for a food store. Here I introduced another, even more attractive technique to my leafleter repertoire: complimenting strangers on their appearances.

Confident, I started telling passersby that their clothes looked lovely, their hair looked stunning, their smiles looked joyous. This buttering up succeeded in convincing far more strangers to grab a flyer. Of course, it had the opposite effect for some who were annoyed by the fakeness—but most people loved my compliments. They took flyers off me more gently and even asked questions about them.

I was really nailing being a pamphlet pusher.

By the third day, I was used to studying people intently for things to compliment. It was around now that I started to recognise pedestrians from earlier days, people walking past again in the same commute they did daily.

That’s how I began to recognise these small, disquieting changes in their appearance that I normally would have overlooked.

One kind woman who had taken a flyer from me the other day, after I’d complimented her lipstick, now had a wart on her nose. A man who had taken a flyer from me, after I’d praised his tie, now had a rash on his neck. The schoolgirl who had taken a flyer from me, after I’d commended her shoes, was now missing a patch of hair.

Now, it’s obviously not unusual for people to develop small and temporary imperfections.

But the sheer amount of them, all in people that I remembered handing out flyers, began to alarm me. I wondered if recipients might be having allergic reactions to the paper or the dye in the flyers somehow. But I hadn’t had any kind of reaction yet and I’d been holding them all day. Besides, could all those people really all have the same yet varied allergic reaction—even those who’d immediately binned their papers?

More of these minute aberrations presented in the stream of pedestrians. Someone had lost a tooth, some had a mild sunburn, someone had a patch of pimples. All faces I’d handed flyers to. A number of them who’d taken flyers over multiple days had stacking, plural blemishes.

My natural talent for the gig was undeniable by Day 4—I’d now empty my paper pile hours before the end of the day, leaving me spare time to duck home early.

But all that occupied my mind during that time was my instinctive apprehension about the flyers’ and physical changes’ correlation.

Therefore, on the day of the week, at the start of my shift, I didn’t take my usual spot on the corner of Main Street. I’d heard of another leafletter working on a different street who I’d seen talking to Horace some days earlier. So, instead of doing my job, I decided to visit her street corner to talk about things.

Lindi was clearly a seasoned pro at flyer distribution, working fast and efficiently to pass out the flyers to every passing body like a machine. A quick smile, brief warm words, a sweeping hand out with nary a paper cut—she had me beat for skill at this.

I interrupted her flow by a park bench and introduced myself as a fellow leafletter also working for Zestprint. Not beating around the bush, I asked straight up if she thought there was something allergenic in the flyers. To this, she hushedly answered that she couldn’t discuss it here.

“When I’m on my break, we can discuss this somewhere more private.”

And we did, going to a cafe shortly after and sitting down.

She was a pretty and preppy looking light brunette girl, a female equivalent of me in that. She, too, was dressed in business casual, in black jeans and a stylish blouse.

“So, have you noticed people having similar allergic reactions to your flyers?”

“It’s not an allergy” Lindi replied bluntly. And then she came out and said it. “You’ve been handing out curses.”

Understandably, I thought she was joking. I quipped something about discounts being curses for shopaholics. Har har. H...

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