The supermarket aisle appeared at 11:37 p.m., between Aisle 12 and Aisle 14.
I worked at the supermarket for just under two years, which is why I know there wasn't an Aisle 13.
There were fourteen aisles, but management skipped thirteen because apparently somebody in head office thought customers cared about bad luck. So the signs went 10, 11, 12, 14, 15.
I didn't even think about it after my first week.
I mostly worked closing shifts. The store shut at eleven. By eleven-fifteen we'd have maybe six people left inside: one manager, two of us filling shelves, somebody on bakery cleanup, security, and whoever had drawn the short straw for tills.
At night the place changed.
Not in a supernatural way. Just visually. Half the lights went off to save power. The freezer compressors sounded louder. The automatic doors stopped opening, so the glass entrance became a black mirror.
You'd hear a tin fall three aisles away and assume somebody else had done it.
Usually somebody had.
The first time I saw Aisle 13 was a Wednesday at 11:37 p.m.
I was pulling a pallet of cereal toward Aisle 12 when I noticed a lit sign farther down.
13.
I stopped with the pallet jack handle in my hands.
My first thought was that management had renumbered things without telling us.
Then I looked behind me.
Aisle 12 was where it always was.
Beyond the new aisle I could see the sign for 14.
There was now a full aisle between them.
I walked over.
It was narrower than the others, maybe half-width, with tall shelving on both sides. The fluorescent tubes above it had that old greenish color you don't really see anymore.
There were products on the shelves, but none belonged in our store.
Old packaging. Brands I vaguely recognized from my grandparents' house. Cereal boxes with faded mascots. Glass bottles of washing liquid. Tins without barcodes.
There were no price labels.
I called out, "Sam?"
No answer.
I stepped inside.
It smelled dusty, which made no sense. Our cleaners went through every aisle every night.
About ten feet in, I saw a red lunchbox on the bottom shelf.
I had owned the same one in primary school.
Spider-Man on the lid. One corner melted slightly where I'd put it too close to a radiator.
I crouched down.
The melted corner was there.
I opened it.
Inside was a crumpled note in my mother's handwriting.
Have a good day, T. Love you x
I dropped the lunchbox.
Someone behind me said, "You can't leave things on the floor."
I nearly hit the shelf turning around.
It was a woman in the old version of our uniform.
Blue blouse. Red name badge. Hair tied back.
She was standing at the entrance to the aisle.
I couldn't see the name on her badge.
"Sorry," I said automatically.
She smiled.
"You'll have to pay for that if it's damaged."
I looked down at the lunchbox.
When I looked back up, she was gone.
I ran out of the aisle.
Sam was coming around the corner with a cardboard cage.
"You all right?"
I pointed.
"When did they put that in?"
He looked where I was pointing.
There was a blank wall between Aisle 12 and Aisle 14.
No aisle.
No sign.
Just the employee-only door to the stock corridor, exactly where it had always been.
The supermarket aisle came back the next night
I spent most of Thursday trying to convince myself I'd had some kind of microsleep.
I was doing college classes during the day and working nights. I was tired all the time.
Then at 11:37 the next night, Aisle 13 came back.
I was with Sam this time.
We were both near chilled foods when the lights flickered once.
I looked toward the center of the store.
There it was.
"Do you see that?" I asked.
Sam looked.
"See what?"
The aisle was fully visible to me.
He was staring directly at its entrance.
"Thirteen," I said.
He frowned.
"There isn't a thirteen."
I didn't go near it.
I kept working.
At 11:51, the store tannoy clicked on.
A woman's voice said, "Customer assistance required in Aisle 13."
Sam stopped.
"Okay," he said.
"You heard that."
He nodded slowly.
The tannoy repeated:
"Customer assistance required in Aisle 13."
Then, after a pause:
"Theo Martin to Aisle 13, please."
Sam looked at me.
My surname was never used over the tannoy.
We went to the manager's office.
Our manager, Priya, was annoyed more than scared. She assumed somebody was messing with the system.
She checked the microphone panel. Locked.
She reviewed the camera feed.
Every aisle appeared normal.
Then Camera 8 flickered.
For maybe two seconds, an extra aisle appeared on the screen.
Priya leaned forward.
"What was that?"
The feed returned to normal.
We rewound.
The extra aisle wasn't on the recording.
Only on the live view.
Then the office phone rang.
Priya answered.
She listened without speaking.
Her face changed.
She handed me the receiver.
"It's for you."
I put it to my ear.
A child was crying.
"Hello?" I said.
The crying stopped.
A little boy whispered, "Mum said not to leave the shop without you."
I knew the voice.
Mine.
Me at maybe seven or eight years old.
"Who is this?"
The child sniffed.
"I'm in thirteen."
The line went dead.
I quit the next morning.
I didn't work notice. I didn't care about the reference.
For a while I refused to shop there. Then, after a few months, curiosity got the better of me.
I went in during the afternoon when the place was busy and bright.
Aisle 12.
Wall.
Aisle 14.
Normal.
I bought milk and left.
That should be the end.
But about a month ago, I was cleaning out boxes at my mother's house.
At the bottom of one was my old red Spider-Man lunchbox.
Same melted corner.
I asked Mum where she'd found it.
She looked confused.
"You brought that home from work," she said.
I told her I hadn't.
"Yes, you did. Ages ago. You left it on the kitchen table."
Inside the lunchbox was the old note.
Have a good day, T. Love you x.
Under it was a supermarket receipt.
Date: the Wednesday I first saw Aisle 13.
Time: 11:44 p.m.
Item description:
1 x LOST CHILD
Price:
£0.00
At the bottom, where the cashier's name should have been, it said:
COLLECTED BY: THEO MARTIN
I don't shop there anymore.
I don't go near the building.
And if I ever walk into a supermarket where the aisle numbers skip thirteen, I leave.
Because now I know the number isn't missing.
It's waiting for closing time.
DarkRecord editorial note: This is an original fictional submission-style horror story. The named submitter and events are fictional.
