On the Clock, After Dark

The doors lock at three.

The call light in the empty ICU room still comes on.

A lighthouse answers a signal that should not exist. A toll booth receives payment from drivers who died years ago. Somewhere beneath the ocean, something is waiting outside the glass.

Some jobs are difficult after midnight. Others become hungry.

On the Clock, After Dark is a collection of thirteen interconnected stories about the people who keep working while the rest of the world sleeps: gas-station clerks, hospital staff, park rangers, security guards, call-center operators, caretakers, and others trapped beneath fluorescent lights with rules no employee handbook would ever admit exist.

They are not ghost hunters or thrill seekers. They are people who need the paycheck. People trying to hold onto a career, care for someone they love, escape a mistake, or survive until morning.

Then the pumps begin running by themselves.

The museum records an acquisition no one remembers receiving. The amusement-park mascot moves after closing. A late-night radio host hears a voice broadcasting beneath his own signal. At a roadside motel, the final guest arrives carrying pieces of every shift that came before.

The workers learn quickly that their jobs have always had rules. Someone simply stopped explaining why.

Follow them through thirteen long nights of supernatural workplace horror, isolated dread, impossible customers, and ordinary people forced to decide how much of themselves they are willing to sacrifice before the clock finally lets them go.

Every job has rules. On the night shift, those rules may be the only thing keeping you alive.