本文译自由Cryptid_Currency创作的[url=https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1e4segh/a_customer_at_the_drive_through_is_causing_me/]A Customer at the Drive Through is Causing Me Nightmares, What do I do？3.0的“署名-相同方式共享”模式。译注与原文以[的形式标注，标题为根据故事内容自拟。格式有调整。翻译有问题请指出。
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A woman came through the drive through a while back. Not in a vehicle or anything, just walked up to the window. Which happens, sometimes people on walks will just come up and buy something. It’s even more common since we’ve had our dining room closed most nights. But I just can’t shake this woman from my head.
I didn’t think she seemed out of place, not physically. Drive throughs get all types of people. I mean some people really stick with you because of how strange they are, like a man yelling at me because I handed his girlfriend her soda “too aggressively”. This woman wasn’t like that, she was remarkably average.
She looked middle-aged, mid-western, a blouse on with a cross just a bit too big and hair straight out of the 80s. She had asked for a small vanilla shake and a small fry, paying with a crumpled-up bill. She told me to keep the change, grabbed the food and walked away into the woods behind the store. But before she left, I think she kissed me? Just my hand, not like a full kiss or anything, but her mouth grazed against my hand when I was passing her the food, just for a second, and I can’t get that out of my head. For all intents and purposes, she should just be another customer in a long line of customers I serve every day, she wasn’t even particularly unusual. But, these past few nights, I feel like I can’t sleep, like she’s stuck somewhere behind my eyelids.
After that night, seeing her, I began having issues. For one, I started seeing bugs on my skin, it was probably due to the lack of sleep, but I’d see them in the corner of my eyes, crawling against my arm. They weren’t there, when I really looked and focused my eyes they’d be gone. It always made me feel on edge. Just the thought of a bug on me makes my skin crawl. Sometimes I would find myself absentmindedly scratching a spot that I’d seen a bug before. It would help that skin crawling feeling go away, at least sometimes. I think my coworkers chalked it up to addiction, a lot of them had gone through it themselves and always treated me extra nice if I had a bad itching day. I thought it was sweet, even if they didn’t know my real problem.
I’d also been losing time, mostly when I’d work the back window, away from everyone else. It would get worse at night too. I’d find myself in the deep freezer, or sweeping the floor, closing up for the night when I wouldn’t even remember it getting dark outside. I really didn’t mind it much though. Sometimes it would be nice to not have to work a full shift.
Surprisingly, given my state, the General Manager was talking about promoting me to shift manager. It was an exciting prospect, it means no more wearing a hat and apron, more responsibilities, but sadly no pay raise. I’d still be happy even without a pay raise but one of the responsibilities of the job is to inventory the downstairs freezer. Normally I wouldn’t have to go down there, the only thing they keep down there is frozen buns that the managers bring up to thaw daily, but soon it would be my job too.
Most fast-food chains don’t have basements, it’s entirely impractical, but since our chain replaced a family-owned company, we strangely have one. It’s a large space, unfinished, always wet, dimly lit, somehow always a dark shade of green. You can’t turn on the lights until you are at the bottom of the stairs and even then the light comes from singular bulbs on strings that barely illuminate the room. It was eerie, and I dreaded having to do inventory alone, so killing 2 birds with one stone, I switched to day shifts. The doctor thinks it would be best, something about my circadian rhythm being messed up by working at night.
After switching shifts, I found that I really liked it. Opening early in the morning has a strange sort of magic to it. The quietness is peaceful, and the sun always streams into the building, sometimes making little rainbows on the caked grime covered floors. My sleep improved and the imaginary bugs went away. My arms finally get a chance to heal, now crisscrossed with bandages to keep the oozy patches contained. I felt refreshed, even going down into the basement doesn’t affect me that much anymore. Just knowing that the sun is out and shining keeps her from my thoughts. At least it had until last week, when I saw her again.
It had been a few months on the day shift, and I was about to leave for the night to go home and suddenly she was there, inside the building, waiting for me at the cash register, her nails tapping against the plastic countertop. She was taller than me, domineering, she frightened me, staring at me expectantly with eyes so radiantly blue they seemed to glow.
“Ma’am, our inside dining area is closed for the day, but we can help you through the drive through,” I had said.
“You aren’t working nights anymore,” her voice was deeper than I had anticipated, fuller, scratchy, like a heavy smoker, it didn’t match her physical appearance at all. Taking a closer look at her, she seemed sick, her eyes reddish, her nose running, her skin flushed a dark pink. She was shiny with sweat.
“No ma’am,” I had replied. The hairs on the back of my neck bristled as she moved closer, leaning over the counter.
“I miss seeing you,” her voice taking on a warm note, like salted caramel. I wanted to curl up in it, breathe her in. She reached her hand over the counter to place it over mine. I could feel the sweat of her palm as it lay clammy against me. I jerked it back startled looking down at my hand, strangely assessing it for injury. By the time I looked back up at her, she was gone, no trace left behind.
I tried to go to sleep that night but couldn’t. She haunted me. She said she missed seeing me, and I worried that might be true. I didn’t think I had seen her at all since that one night when she kissed me. Had I missed something? I tried closing my eyes, counting sheep, willing myself to sleep, but I couldn’t stop the thoughts racing around my head, that and my hand itched like hell.
I dreamed of the woods behind the store, dense with foliage, brush untamed holding onto bits of paper wrapper and plastic bags, it appeared almost like the leftover remains of a meal trapped on the teeth of a wooden beast. I saw her, her body tucked within that maw. Her skin even sicker, draped around her like melting candle wax, her eyes the lit flame. Her hair had slunk off, her eyelids hung against her cheeks. She held out a hand for me. Her fingers dripping blood, flesh drooping against bone. The forest mouth seemed to open, hinging back displaying her like a pearl in an oyster, like a red tongue in a mouth. She stepped, tree branches catching on her skin, ripping it like wet tissue paper. I wanted to scream I wanted to run, but in ways dreams are so often, I couldn’t move. I felt her get closer, I could feel that horrible sensation, my skin rebelling against me, itching. She stood a mere foot away from me, grabbing at her own melting visage. Shifting it, molding it like warm putty, finally she lifted it back, moving it almost like taking of a hood, revealing her face. I woke.
Morning shifts got worse; my sleep schedule got thrown off again. I started itching, seeing things in the corner of my eyes, not just bugs anymore. My coworkers really started to worry. My doctor says I need medication, but it takes weeks to start being effective, I don’t know how long I can keep going like this. I hear things now too, I hear her, in the basement. She whispers to me, she wants me to come back at night, to stay until sunset, she says she has wonderful things to show me.
The bugs aren’t on my skin anymore, they’re in it. I can feel them moving, separating skin from flesh, as much as I scratch, I can’t seem to get them out. My arms are a landscape of open wounds, scabs, and raw tissue. I’ve been trying to wear long sleeves, but I can’t stop pulling them up to itch. Customers have started treating me with disgust, I was pulled aside today by the general manager, they’re thinking about firing me if I don’t get any help. I can’t explain that I’m beyond help, that she has me, I am hers now.
My coworkers say there used to be a woman that would come up to the window each night once I switched to day shift and ask if I was there, she’s stopped coming. My coworkers don’t know what happened to her, but I do. She’s in the building, tucked under the stairs of the basement, waiting for me to stay just long enough for the sun to set. I can see her down there every morning, peaking at me while I count the number of rye loafs and burger buns. The coworkers think we have a mouse infestation, something keeps eating our leftover cookies and frosted turnovers, but I know the truth. She just has a sweet tooth.
It’s getting colder outside. I know she can’t get me in the sun, but the days are getting shorter. One day I’m going to leave too late, and I know she’ll have me.
She showed me what she really looked like today, when she takes off her skin. In my dream I never saw it, but right before I left for the day I went down there, rolling her a chunk of raw cookie dough from the freezer. I don’t want her contaminating the customers food while searching for a sweet treat. She pawed almost into the light reaching for the dough, and I saw her fleshless hand.
“Turn off the lights love,” she whispered to me. I shook my head, my resolve weakening. She came out into the light further her eyes glowing cat like in the darkness.
“I want you to see me,” she whispered, despite myself, I switched off the basement lights. The room went dark, inky black. She emerged from her den behind the stairs. And I saw her, her horrible tremendous self. A display from a grey’s anatomy book, muscles, tendons, ligaments on full display.
I see her even writing this now. Her eyes eternally open, blood pooling around her feet, her flesh tender. She holds open her arms towards me like a lover. She says she wants me; I am her chosen; she won’t leave without me. I can feel my skin pull from me, flesh yearning for escape from its prison, it wants her too. I don’t know how much longer I can resist.
I let her touch me in that basement, just my hand, she kissed it again, purposefully this time. I can feel my tissue peel away, like a hangnail that doesn’t stop, a whole finger unsheathed from its flesh. I type with it now, every nerve ending feels born again, sensation free of the dulling of skin. I think I’ll go back tonight, let her run her hands against me, and feel as my skin slides free.
Born anew.