At the edge of our town, there's a crappy gas station that's open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

If you were to go inside, you'd see row after row of off-brand chips, cookies, potted meals,

and pickled curiosities. Expiration dates suspiciously missing from the canned goods,

like they were filed off years ago in some misguided attempt to control inventory turnover.

A faded, wet floor sign from way back covers a large crack in the foundation by the cooler,

where layers of sticky spill-off have formed a miniature tar pit,

preserving countless insect

corpses in the occasional small rodent.

Nobody ever complains about the aesthetic.

By some providence bordering on the supernatural, the health inspector has repeatedly

signed off on the business, always kindly ignoring the faint smell of some kind of mysterious

cocktail that is the defining characteristic

of the establishment. More noticeable than the steady mechanic hum of the frozen drink machine

that was installed in the 70s and never once serviced. More distracting than the random pockets

of cold and warm air that seem to follow you around, and more annoying than the family of mutated

raccoons that lives in the

crawl space behind the grease trap.

We think they're mutated anyway.

At the very least, they must be inbred to the point of genetic deformity and mental retardation.

The alpha, a muscular three-foot-tall son of a bitch named Baraco, has been spotted

multiple times chewing on people's tires, and has been run over at least twice, but keeps coming back.

That lingering smell, a sweet combination of honeysuckle, ammonia, and vomit has never

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