Chapter 1: Last Call for Normal

The hum of the cooler was louder than the radio tonight.

Willie leaned against the edge of the checkout counter, arms crossed, watching Ram stock the last of the hot dog buns into the stainless steel warmer labeled Memo’s – Ya Comieron?. The sticker peeled slightly at the corner, like everything else in the store that had just enough character to look old but not enough to warrant replacing.

Outside, the sun had dipped behind the silos on the far edge of the highway. Summer dusk in South Texas didn’t mean cooler—just darker and somehow stickier. The bugs had started their nightly slow suicide against the glass doors.

Inside, Big Head Todd and the Monsters played from the tinny speaker mounted near the back of Aisle 2. “Bittersweet” was warbling through static.

Joseph leaned halfway into the mop bucket, spinning the mop like he was churning butter. “Y’all ever think we’re the only ones under forty who know this song?”

“No,” Willie said. “But I do think we’re the only ones listening to it in a place that smells like burnt taquitos and Pine-Sol.”

Ram snorted. “Speak for yourself. This is premium griddle ambiance.”

He slapped the last of the buns into place and shut the warming drawer. The scent of chili cheese dogs and jalapeño belches was already forming a thick, invisible curtain over the register area.

Willie shifted his stance. “Clock says we’ve got about fifteen before close. Let’s kill the rollers after that. And double-check the beer cooler. That one dude with the rattail already came in twice today asking for Cerveza Johnny Mecuerdo.”

“Twice?” Joseph said, lifting the mop. “That dude only has one functioning tooth and it's holding on outta spite. Why does he need two six-packs?”

“Because it’s Tuesday,” Ram said flatly.

Willie chuckled. “Makes sense. One for him, one for Jesus.”

A ding from the door made all three of them glance up. A woman walked in—tight black jeans, bleach-blonde bob, and that look that said she’d fought someone over lottery tickets before and would do it again. She beelined to the counter without a word, flipping through a crumpled wad of dollar bills like she was trying to start a fire.

“Lemme get three of them Diamond Spades, one Hit It Big, and... two Lucky Lincolns,” she said, not looking up.

Willie rang it up, torn between amusement and dread. Joseph mouthed lottery fuck behind her back, then spun toward the mop bucket before he broke into a grin.

The woman scratched one right there on the counter, flakes of silver dust falling into the gum display. She lost, of course. They always did. She huffed, crumpled the ticket, and looked up like it was the store’s fault. “Y’all got any of the Mecuerdo left?”

“Cooler should have a few,” Willie said.

She strutted over to grab a six-pack, pausing to yell over her shoulder: “Better be cold this time. I ain't drinking no piss-warm pirate beer.”

Willie waited until she disappeared behind the beer doors. Then he turned to Joseph.

“We need a sign.”

Joseph tilted his head. “Like what?”

“No Lottery Fucks.”

Ram burst out laughing, dropping to one knee beside the register. “That’s a T-shirt.”

“That’s a brand,” Joseph added, grinning. “Sell it right next to the Cerveza Johnny Mecuerdo koozies.”

The woman reappeared with the six-pack and slammed it on the counter. “These better not be warm.”

Willie gave a tight-lipped smile. “They were just baptized in frost.”

She didn’t laugh, didn’t say thanks, just peeled out in her truck—muffler dragging, radio blaring Stone Temple Pilots.

Silence returned.

Ram exhaled. “I swear, it’s like if Walmart and The Twilight Zone had a baby.”

Willie checked the clock. “Alright, mop and lock. I’m doing the safe drop, then I’m out. Ram, grab the back door. Joseph, kill the warmers.”

“Copy,” Joseph said. “But if that woman shows up in my dreams tonight, I’m quitting.”

“You’re not quitting,” Ram said. “You’ve been quitting since eighth grade.”

They laughed. The kind of laugh people share when the day’s been long, the air’s thick, and the job is the job. Nothing more. Nothing less.

None of them knew that in fifteen minutes, their store manager Noe would disappear in the middle of a sentence. That the hot dog buns they’d just stocked would blink out of existence. That the back freezer would become something else entirely.

Right now, it was just Tuesday. Just another shift at Survival Stop.

The last normal night they'd ever know.