You ever in a place where it's so quiet you hear something you ought not to.

That's me now, sitting outside my store, just trying to have a cigarette before we open. It's mid-January and there's a nice thick blanket of snow on the ground. I had to shovel my way to the door and I'm pretty mad about that. We pay Donny to do it and Donny's probably still asleep. He never remembers that we open at 6. He wishes we opened at 10. When he shows up, I'm going to put all the snow back and make him shovel it again.

The only reason I mention the snow is because it makes the world quiet. Cold, for sure, but there's a fuzziness to the air, like it's all made of cotton. Cotton in your head, cotton in your ears, but it don't make all things quiet. It makes some things louder. Things you ought not to hear.

I take a last drag of my cigarette out and try to not hear it. I think I have time to put away the milk order before I open up, but then again, I can always open late. Even our customers sometimes run on Donny time.

I hear it again and it's not a sound that my brain wants to wrap itself around. I could describe it, but then I would have to say I hear it and letting anyone know that I am near this sound is the last thing I want to do. Hearing that means taking responsibility and I would rather just pinch out the last of my cigarette and head inside. 

It feels close, but sound carries in the winter. Should I look around the corner? No way. 

I'm not even going to lift my head up in a sign that I'm awake. Going to walk into this store like a zombie and bar the door shut behind me. Don't care if Donny decides to show. Donny can stay outside with the snow and the shovel and that sound.

I trip in my rush to get inside and knock over the shovel, which I don't care about now, I don't care about anything but shutting the door on that sound. But the shovel’s handle wedged itself in between the door and the jamb and of course I can't get the door shut because getting the door shut would mean getting back to my life before that sound and there's no hope of that now. But if I can just push the bottom of the shovel away with my boot then maybe. 

Yes. Got it. Yes. Thank god! Slam.

The only thing I can hear now is my heartbeat and the hum of the cooler. Those are things I need to hear. Those are the only things I need to hear. 

The front of the store's got tall plate glass windows. I peek out from the back room but can't see anything out front. There's enough light on in the store to make seeing into the early morning impossible. I wish this door between the workroom and the store had a lock. Wish it had a knob. Wish it had a damn gun.

I think I can head into the cooler, then further into the freezer and then into the far back room that none of us really knew was there until last week when Wendy found it. There was nothing in it then and that made it creepier. 

The cooler door is pretty big, but unlockable, for obvious reasons. Here we keep the milk and the soda and various refrigerated foods we sell. There's a walkway between the stock for sale and the stock for stocking. The door makes a deep thump when it closes behind me. I look back and then I look out between a couple of half-gallons of 2%. I can see through the store into the parking lot. The sun is starting to rise, and I figure I have about 15 minutes before I have to open. When Donny shows up late, he usually beats on the front door until I open it, but he's not there now. I wouldn’t mind seeing his stupid face right now. Dammit Donny.

The hum is louder here. The unit vents are outside and cool the fresh air. It's not terrible in here, particularly since it's cold outside. I like to hang out here in the summer. But this morning, I have to keep going. 

The freezer is smaller in length than the cooler and has fewer items. We keep the ice cream here and the frozen entrees lonely people buy on occasion. That happens less now that the pizza place opened up. I peek out of here too, but can only see the bread aisle and half of the cashier counter. I can't hear any knocking. 

I can't hear anything right now. 

The humming has stopped. The humming should never stop. The humming means frozen things stay frozen. I remember hearing the freezer door close behind me. Didn't I?

Even my heartbeat is muffled now. 

Suddenly the humming starts again and I wonder if there's a cycle it goes through and I just haven't been here when it happens. Either way, I think about that noise and I think I'm gonna head one step farther in. I'm gonna sit in that back room and calm the heck down. Wendy hides her vodka in there now and that's just what I need. 

You would think a room that hidden would be musty, but it's the ventilation, understand. The ventilation is good here. The door sticks a little, but I can get it open. I'm pretty strong.

The ventilation, that's why I heard the noise, the one I wanted to ignore, the one I came here to hide from. What made it, well, it’s in here and I’m in here with it. And it’s a nightmare hunched over something slumped on two stacked milk crates. 

It's not looking for Wendy's vodka. It’s feeding and feeding real good.

Dammit Donny, the one day you're early.