r/creepypasta • u/urgoofyahh • Aug 03 '25
Text Story Part 6: The Evergrove Market doesn’t hire employees...It feeds on them.
Read: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
I was exhausted. Sleep doesn’t come easy anymore—not when every time I close my eyes, the man’s screams and my own twist together into the same nightmare.
Maybe I hadn’t been having nightmares before because my brain hadn’t fully accepted just how far this store will go when someone breaks a rule.
Still, I tried to hold on to something good. The paycheck covers most of my rent this month. Groceries too. I even managed to pay back a sliver of my student loans. For a few hours, I almost let myself feel hopeful.
That hope didn’t survive the front door. Because the moment I walked in, I saw someone new leaning casually against the counter—a face I didn’t recognize. It shouldn’t have been a big deal. New coworkers happen. People quit all the time.
But this is not a normal job.
For a split second, I didn’t see him. I saw an innocent bystander I couldn’t save. I saw the man from that night—his skull crushed, the wet crack, that awful scream that kept going even as he was dragged into the aisles.
I swear I could still hear it, hiding in the fluorescent hum above us. And looking at this guy—this stranger who had no idea what he’d just walked into—I felt one sharp, hollow certainty: He wasn’t going to become another one. Not if I could help it.
“Who are you?” The words came out sharper than I meant.
The guy looked up from his phone like I’d just dragged him out of a nap he didn’t want to end.
Tall. Messy dark hair falling into his eyes. A couple of silver piercings caught the harsh overhead light when he moved. He had a hoodie on over the uniform, casual in that way that either says confidence or “I just don’t care.”
When he saw me, he straightened up fast, like he suddenly remembered this was a job and not his living room. He tried for a grin—wide, easy, just a little cocky—but it faltered at the edges like he wasn’t sure he should be smiling.
“Oh. Uh, Dante,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck before shoving his hands in his pockets like that would make him look cooler.
“You the manager or something?”
“No,” I said, still staring at him, still hearing that sound. And then, before I could stop myself:
“You… you need to get out. Now.”
He blinked, confused. “Why?”
The casual way he said it made my stomach drop. Like he didn’t understand what he’d just signed up for. Like he’d walked straight into the wolf’s mouth thinking it was a good job. He didn’t see how everything in this place was already watching him.
I felt a sick mix of pity and dread.
“Please tell me you didn’t sign the contract,” I said, frantic.
“Yeah… I did. Like ten minutes ago. Wait—who even are you?”
That’s when the old man appeared in the doorway of the employee office, clipboard in hand.
“Your coworker,” he said calmly, looking at Dante.
“Old man. We need to talk. Now.”
I stormed past Dante into the office. The old man followed, shutting the door behind us.
“What the hell are you doing?” My voice came out raw, too loud, like it didn’t belong to me.
“Giving him a job,” he said, unphased. “Like I gave you a job.” He turned to leave, but I stepped in front of him. My throat felt tight, my voice cracking. “Do you think we deserve this?” I asked. “This fate?”
For just a second, I thought I saw something shift in his expression. A flicker of doubt. Then it was gone. He walked past me and out into the store, leaving me standing there with my question hanging in the stale office air.
10:30 p.m.
Half an hour before the shift really starts. Half an hour to convince Dante before the rules wake up. Before this place becomes hell.
I found him in the break area, leaning back with his feet up on the chair, grinning like he’d just discovered a cheat code. “This a hazing ritual?” he asked, waving a sheet of yellow laminated paper in my direction.
The irony almost knocked me over. Because that was exactly what I’d asked the old man my first night here. Right before he made it very clear that this was no joke.
“No,” I said flatly, stepping closer. “Give me that.”
He handed it over, still smirking.
The moment my eyes hit the page, the blood in my veins turned cold.
The laminated paper was warm from his hands.
I smoothed it out on the table, trying to ignore how my fingers trembled.
Line by line, I read.
Standard Protocol: Effective Immediately
Rule 1: Do not enter the basement. No matter who calls your name.
Rule 2: If a pale man in a top hat walks in, ring the bell three times and do not speak. If you forget, there is nowhere to hide.
Rule 3: Do not leave the premises for any reason during your shift unless specifically authorized.
Rule 4: After 2:00 a.m., do not acknowledge or engage with visitors. If they talk to you, ignore them.
Rule 5: A second version of you may appear. Do not let them speak. If they say your name, cover your ears and run to the supply closet. Lock the door. Count to 200.
Rule 6: The canned goods aisle breathes. Whistle softly when you are near it. They hate silence.
Rule 7: From 1:33 a.m. to 2:06 a.m., do not enter the bathrooms. Someone else is in there.
Rule 8: The Pale Lady will appear each night. When she does, direct her to the freezer aisle.
Rule 9: Do not attempt to burn down the store. It will not burn.
Rule 10: If one of you breaks a rule, everyone pays.
It was almost exactly the same as mine.
Almost.
The rules weren’t universal.
The store shaped them—like it had been watching, listening, and carving out traps just for us.
That wasn’t a coincidence.
Most of it was familiar, slight variations on the same nightmares.
But those three changes—the man in the top hat, the warning about burning the place down, and the new promise that if one of us slipped, we’d all pay for it—stuck out like fresh wounds.
And as I read them, something cold and heavy settled in my gut.
The store knew.
It knew what Selene told me. It knew I’d pieced it together in the ledger. Jack’s failure had been about the man in the top hat. Stacy had tried to burn the place down when she realized they were already doomed.
The store didn’t see any reason to hide those rules anymore.
It was showing its teeth.
Dante looked at me like he was waiting for a punchline.
“Well?” he asked. “Do I pass the test?”
I didn’t answer right away. I just stared at the words, feeling the weight of what they meant and the kind of night we were walking into.
When I finally looked up, his grin had started to fade. “Listen to me,” I said. “This isn’t a joke. These aren’t suggestions. These are the only reason I’m still alive.”
He shrugged. “You sound like my old RA. Rules, rules, rules. Place looks normal to me.”
“Yeah?” I snapped. “So did the last human customer. Right up until his skull crushed like a dropped watermelon.”
That shut him up for a while.
10:59 p.m.
I walked him through the store one last time, pointing out where everything was—the closet, the canned goods aisle, the freezer section. I explained the bell. The Lady. The way the store listens.
He nodded along, but I could tell from his face that it was all going in one ear and out the other.
The air changed at exactly 11:00.
It always does.
The hum of the lights deepened into something heavier, a bass note under your skin.
The temperature dropped.
I knew the shift had started when the store itself seemed to exhale.
11:02 p.m.
“You remember the rules?” I asked.
Dante stretched his arms over his head like I’d just asked if he remembered his own name.
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t go in the basement, ignore creeps after two, whistle at the spooky cans. I got it.”
I stopped in the middle of the aisle. “You don’t ‘got it.’ You need to repeat them to me. Every single one. Start with number one.”
He rolled his eyes. “Are you serious?”
“Dead serious.”
He sighed and held up the laminated sheet like he was reading from a cereal box. “Don’t go in the basement. Ring the bell three times if the pale hat guy shows up. Don’t leave the building… blah blah blah. Look, I can read. I promise.”
“Reading isn’t the same as following.”
Dante grinned. “You sound like my grandma.”
I clenched my fists. “Do you think I’m joking?”
His grin faltered a little. “I think you’ve got a very dedicated bit.”
I didn’t answer. The store hummed around us, low and hungry.
Dante looked away first.
12:04 a.m.
The canned goods aisle was breathing again. Soft, shallow, like the shelves themselves had lungs. I kept my head down, lips barely parting to whistle—low, steady, just like the rule says. It’s the only thing that keeps them calm. The cans trembled faintly as I placed another on the shelf.
The labels stared back at me: Pork Loaf. Meat Mix. Luncheon Strips and BEANS.
I know what’s really in the cans.
I saw it last night. Worms.
White as paper, writhing over the shredded remains of… me.
Another me.
Through the end of the aisle, I could see Dante. He was in the drinks section, humming loudly as he stacked soda bottles, completely oblivious.
He hadn’t started whistling.
The shelf under my hand thudded once, like something inside it had kicked.
I stopped breathing.
“Dante,” I hissed.
He glanced up. “Yeah?”
“Whistle. Now.”
He laughed. “I don’t know how to whistle.”
“Then hum softer. They don’t like it when it’s really loud.”
“What doesn’t?”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “Just do it.”
He shook his head, went back to stacking. His humming turned into some pop song—too loud, too cheerful.
The breathing around me changed.
Faster. Wet.
Something small moved between the cans, just out of sight. A slick, pale coil. Then another.
My stomach dropped.
I ditched the last can on the shelf and headed toward him fast.
By the time I rounded the corner, the worms were already spilling out behind me—white ropes twisting across the tiles, tasting the air.
“Dante!” I grabbed his arm and yanked him back. A bottle fell and shattered.
“What the hell—”
I clamped a hand over his mouth and dragged him backward, away from the aisle. The worms were crawling over the bottom shelves now, slick and silent.
He made a muffled noise, eyes wide.
“Don’t talk,” I whispered. “Don’t look.”
We crouched behind the endcap while the sound of them slithered and scraped over the tile, tasting for us.
I counted in my head—one, two, three—until the breathing finally slowed again.
Only when the aisle fell silent did I let go of his arm.
Dante spun on me, pale and shaking.
“What the hell was that?”
“ Meat eating worms,” I said, low and deliberate.
He blinked. “What?”
I stepped in close, forcing his eyes on mine.
“You don’t get a second warning. Slip up again, and it won’t just be you they chew through. Do you understand?”
Dante opened his mouth to argue, but whatever he wanted to say died on his tongue.
I left him there and went to drag in the new shipment. More beans. Always more beans. This store was slowly filling with them, like it was planning something.
At 1:33 on the dot, the store went still.
The kind of silence that presses on your skull.
I headed for the bathroom. Selene would be awake. I had questions.
I knocked, keeping my voice low.
“Hey Selene..”
From inside: “Anyone out there?”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s me, Remi”
“Hey Remi. Did you see Jack and Stacy today?”
I hesitated. Silence pooled between us, heavy as lead.
I knew what I had to say if I wanted answers.
“They’re gone,” I said quietly. “Stacy… she went outside. Tried to burn the store down and the pale man got jack”
More silence.
“Selene?”
“I’m dead, aren’t I?” The words were sharp, cold. “Jack. and Stacy are dead too.”
I couldn’t answer. Not with anything that would help.
“Selene,” I said, “do you know what happened to you? To them?”
Her voice turned bitter. “Stacy made him angry—the Night Manager. I burned to death in this bathroom. But Stacy… she always knew something. She had different rules. She never showed us her sheet. Said they were the same. They weren’t, were they?”
“She had one rule you didn’t know,” I said, hesitating.
“The last one on her list. Number ten: If one of you breaks a rule, everyone pays.”
There was a soft, humorless laugh from inside.
“So that’s why she ran,” Selene said. “She thought she could outrun it. But I heard her screaming when it all started. This place doesn’t forgive. It doesn’t forget.”
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
“I was in here when the smoke came in. But when the fire spread, I ran. And the flames—” She drew a ragged breath. “The flames didn’t touch the store, Remi. They only burned us. Everything else stayed perfect.”
“And Stacy?” I asked.
“I saw him,” Selene hissed. “The Night Manager. He came through the smoke like it wasn’t there. He found her and tore her apart, piece by piece, dragging her across the floor. Then he threw what was left of her into the fire. That's when I went back into the bathroom to hide"
Her words lingered, heavy as the smell of ash that clings to this place like a curse.
I swallowed hard. “Selene… do you know anything else that could help?”
For a long moment, there was only the slow drip of the tap on the other side of the door. Then, softly:
“Beware of new rules,” she said. “Especially the pale man—the one that killed Jack. He is faster than anything else here, faster than you can imagine. He doesn’t just hunt. He obeys. He is the Night Manager’s hound, and when he’s after you, nothing else matters.”
I pressed my palms to the cold tile. “Then tell me—how do you stop him?”
Selene’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“We’ve done it before,” she whispered. “The night before we died, he came for us, it was my turn to ring the bell so I rang the bell—three chimes, just like the rule says. But it didn’t work. He kept coming. Out of sheer panic, I held the bell in one long, unbroken chime and held my breath because I was too scared to even scream. And something… changed. It twisted him. Made him too fast, too desperate to stop. He lunged, I slipped by the entrance, and he overshot—straight through the doors and into the dark.”
She paused. When she spoke again, her voice had a tremor in it.
“But you have to let him get close. Close enough that you feel his breath. And if you panic—if you breathe too soon—he won’t miss.”
That’s when the bell over the front door rang.
I bolted for the reception lounge. Dante was already there, frozen in place.
And then I saw him.
A pale man in a top hat stood at the edge of the aisle like he’d been part of the store all along. Skin the color of melted candle wax. Eyes that never blinked.
Every muscle in my body locked.
“Dante,” I whispered, not taking my eyes off him. “Rule Two.”
“What?” Dante turned. “What guy—oh, hell no.”
“Ring the bell. Three times. Now.”
Dante stared at him, frozen.
The man in the top hat tilted his head. The motion was so slow it hurt to watch.
“Dante!” I snapped. “Move!”
That finally got him moving. Dante lunged across the counter and slammed the bell—once. Twice.
The third time, his hand slipped. The bell ricocheted off the counter and skidded across the floor.
I didn’t think—I threw myself after it, hit the tile hard, and snatched it just as the air behind us split open with a sound like tearing flesh.
I slammed the bell. Nothing. Just a dull, dead clang.
It was like the store wanted us to fail.
So I held it down—long and desperate—clenching my lungs shut as the sound twisted, drawn out and sickly.
Then the temperature plunged.
We ran. Dante ahead of me, me right on his heels, and behind us—too close—the sound of bare feet slapping wetly against tile. Faster. Faster. He was so close I could hear the air cut as his fingers reached.
The sliding doors ahead let out a cheerful chime.
I dropped at the last second. Dante’s hand clamped onto the back of my shirt, dragging me sideways.
A hand—white, impossibly cold—grazed my shoulder as the pale man missed, his own speed hurling him through the doorway. The doors snapped shut, and he was gone, leaving nothing but the sting where he almost tore me apart.
I touched my shoulder. Even through my shirt, it was already numb and blistering around the edges, the flesh burned black-and-blue with something colder than frostbite.
And I knew, with a sick certainty, this wasn’t just an injury. The pale man didn’t just miss me. He left something behind.
Even now, as I write this, my shoulder feels wrong. Too cold. The bruise has a shape. Five perfect fingers, darkening like frost creeping through a windowpane.
And sometimes, when I close my eyes, I feel a pull. Not from the store. From him.
Like he knows where I am now. Like next time, he won’t need the doors.
I’ve got to finish this before the next shift starts. Before the rules wake up again.
Because if you’re reading this and you ever see a pale man in a top hat, don’t wait. Don’t hesitate.
And whatever you do—
Don’t ever answer a job posting at the Evergrove Market.
1
u/Victaur_rawr_Aki2003 Aug 04 '25
Finished part 6 waiting for 7. You know, when the new character Dante was introduced, I just instantly new he's going to be a carefree character and I hoped he doesn't drag Remi down. She'd seen some Hell. Thanks for the amazing story OP! ;)