Chapter 5: Phase Shift

The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, a low hum that felt louder in the awkward silence hanging in the Survival Stop. First shift hadn’t shown up yet, and the three of them—Ram, Willie, and Joseph—sat scattered around the front counter like survivors after a storm.

Ram hadn’t said much since they got back. He clutched a bottle of orange juice in one hand and the Montana koozie in the other, like they might anchor him to this reality. His eyes looked hollow. Haunted. Like whatever happened on the other side of that freezer door was still clinging to him.

Willie had paced for a while, muttering half-thoughts to himself, but now he leaned against the lotto display, arms crossed, chewing his lip. Joseph sat on a milk crate by the mop sink, quietly scrolling through yesterday’s register totals on the tablet but not really reading anything. His thumb moved, but his brain was somewhere else.

Finally, Joseph broke the silence. “So... what now?”

Willie shrugged. “We saw it. We stepped through, came back. I think we keep the store running like nothing happened. Until something else does.”

Ram let out a dry laugh. “Clara and Linda said people phase in all the time. Sometimes they make it back. Sometimes they don’t.”

Joseph looked up. “You think that’s what happened to Noe?”

“I didn’t say his name. I didn’t even mention him,” Ram said slowly. “But when I asked about weird shifts, they looked at each other like they already knew. Like they’d lost someone too.”

Willie squinted at him. “They didn’t react to the name or they didn’t act surprised?”

Ram shook his head. “Like they’d already had the conversation in their heads. Like I was late to it.”

The bell above the door jingled. A woman in a pink hoodie shuffled in, scratching her neck and heading straight for the scratch-offs. Joseph groaned softly.

“Scratch-off regular.”

Ram almost smiled. Almost.

“Morning, Ms. June,” Joseph said. She didn’t respond—just hovered near the ticket rolls, eyes darting. Her fingers twitched like she was picking an invisible scab.

Willie unlocked the cabinet. “One More, Por Favor,” he muttered, passing her a strip of tickets like a back-alley deal.

She scratched one on the counter and left it there, only half-peeled, before drifting back out the door. No goodbye. No thank you.

Ram followed the scratch ticket with his eyes. “That lady’s been scratching tickets since before sunrise.”

“She gets the 5 a.m. itch,” Joseph muttered. “You know how it is.”

“No,” Ram said. “I really don’t.”

Joseph and Willie looked at him.

“I mean, I don’t know what’s real anymore,” Ram continued. “There’s another store. Another me, maybe. Same branding. Same freezer. What if we’re just another version? What if someone phased in here a long time ago and never phased out?”

Joseph tapped the screen off and leaned forward. “We don’t know anything yet. Could be some freak pocket in space, some physics thing. Could be ghosts. Could be the burrito warmer giving off fumes.”

“It wasn’t the burrito warmer,” Willie said, dead serious.

Another silence passed, heavier now. Ram stood and walked slowly behind the counter. He opened the drawer and looked at the koozie one more time. Then he pulled it out, turned it over, and read something etched inside in faint Sharpie:

“Don’t stay too long.”

He turned pale.

Joseph saw his face. “What? What is it?”

Ram passed the koozie to him. Joseph turned it in his hands.

Willie leaned over to look. “The hell?”

“That writing,” Ram whispered. “That’s Noe’s.”

The bell jingled again. This time, it was a kid in a high school band hoodie, dropping a wrinkled ten on the counter for gas. They handled the transaction like robots, not saying much. Ram gave him a penny too much in change.

When the door closed again, Joseph looked at Ram. “You’re saying Noe left this?”

“I’m saying it’s his handwriting. I saw him write up the tamale sign last Christmas. Same loops on the ‘t’s.”

Willie said nothing. Just stared out the window at the parking lot, like he expected it to shimmer and vanish.

“Y’all ever feel like the store’s watching us?” Ram asked quietly.

Joseph and Willie didn’t answer.

But the lights flickered just once.

Over the radio, Ozzy Osbourne’s “Road to Nowhere” began to play—slow and haunting, like it knew something they didn’t.

And somewhere, on the other side of a freezer door, another shift began.