The Helpful Attendant

by Stephen Johnson

The neon bulbs flickered, casting a foreboding crimson shadow outside the isolated truck stop. I pulled to a stop on fumes, staring inside at the solitary light portraying only the back of a head visible in the store. Cautiously, I walked in and entered a surreal silence that engulfed me. I turned to the register to see a mangled bloody severed head staring back at me positioned on the counter with a devious smile placed on its lips. I felt a putrid cold breath slide across my neck and a gravelly voice whisper in my ear, “Can I help you?”

Stephen Johnson

Stephen Johnson is a retired Naval Officer serving 22 years on four different ships over his career.  He is married to his wife, Angelia, and they have two children, Logan and Isabelle. He plans to complete his first novel, The Fizz Prophecy, by the end of March 2021. He has published “The Hollow” in Eleanor Merry’s Dark Halloween Holiday Flash Fiction Anthology and “The Other Side of the Mirror” in Scare Street’s Night Terrors Volume 8.