Terrifying Thanksgiving Tales

Black Friday Backrooms

Sam hated her job at MegaMart, the sprawling fluorescent labyrinth of consumerism that devoured her nights and weekends. Tonight was the worst—Thanksgiving. The store was closing early, but Sam wasn’t going home to feast or relax. No, she was prepping for Black Friday, that unholy capitalist ritual she loathed more than anything.

The fluorescent lights hummed their dull tune, flickering faintly as Sam stood in Aisle 12, organizing glittery, oversized Christmas ornaments marked 50% off. She smirked bitterly; they were still overpriced. She had unpacked these exact ornaments a week ago, slapped with “Everyday Low Price” tags twice as expensive. It was all a scam—this whole Black Friday circus. A ritual of consumerism, greed, and idiocy. She hated her job but also hated the concept of having a job. 

She hated the customers more—entitled, greedy, always trying to argue for an extra discount or acting like she was beneath them. Her coworkers were no better. She had heard enough locker room jokes from the likes of Larry in sporting goods to last a lifetime. And Margo, the eternal gossip, never passed up an opportunity to comment on someone’s appearance or blame “the liberals” for everything. Sam tried to keep to herself, but their lazy incompetence inevitably made her night shifts harder.

Sam had never liked Thanksgiving. For her, it was less about turkey and family and more about dragging herself to MegaMart.  It felt like her entire life was going to work, recovering from work and then going back to work.  As she stood beneath the fluorescent lights that hummed like a hive of angry bees, she glared at the gaudy decorations screaming “BIGGEST SALE EVER” and felt her soul shrivel a little more.

MegaMart was a machine, and Sam was just one of its many disposable cogs. Her manager was the worst of all, a vampiric presence who drained her will to live with every chirpy, manipulative pep talk.

Around 10:45 p.m., as she restocked clearance toys in the farthest corner of the store, the PA system crackled.

“Attention, employees: Last call to prepare before the doors open at midnight. Team leads, report to the breakroom immediately.”

She sighed. It was her cue to check the stockroom for any last-minute inventory. The stockroom was colder than usual. The hum of the central air was absent, and her footsteps echoed more loudly than they should. The shelves were barren in this section, a wasteland of toppled boxes and forgotten clearance items.

Her flashlight flickered as she scanned the rows, searching for pallets of gaming consoles they were supposed to push at midnight. But instead of the familiar layout, she found herself staring down an unfamiliar corridor.

The air smelled damp, metallic. Sam frowned. The storage shelves stretched farther than she remembered, like the room had grown overnight. Rows upon rows of identical cardboard boxes loomed on either side of her, disappearing into shadows that the overhead lights couldn’t penetrate.

Her sneakers squeaking on the polished concrete. The usual pathways between shelves were gone, replaced with new ones that twisted and turned like a maze. 

Sam frowned. She had worked here for years. She knew the stockroom like the back of her hand, but this… this wasn’t right. The shelves loomed higher, their tops disappearing into darkness. The corridor stretched impossibly far, the fluorescent bulbs overhead buzzing erratically.

“Great. Perfect,” she muttered, her voice swallowed by the oppressive quiet. She turned to retrace her steps, but the entrance she had just come through was gone.

Her heart skipped a beat.

She moved faster, scanning for any sign of familiarity—a safety exit, a row number, even the obnoxious posters about “Teamwork.” But the deeper she ventured, the more surreal everything became. Shelves warped and bent at unnatural angles. Some were stacked with bizarre items: faded cans of soda she didn’t recognize, broken toys from decades past, even a cracked plasma TV displaying static despite no power source.

The air grew heavier, pressing against her chest. She tried to call out, but her voice faltered. The buzzing of the lights intensified, now mixed with faint whispers.

Sam’s heart began to pound as she stumbled forward, hoping to find another way out. But the hallways twisted and turned like a labyrinth, leading her deeper into the void. The fluorescent lights flickered above her, and occasionally, she swore she could hear the faint roar of Black Friday shoppers—an eerie, disembodied cacophony of shouts and crashing carts.

Days passed. Or was it weeks? Sam couldn’t tell anymore. She scavenged what she could, though most of the food tasted wrong, and the water left her parched. Sleep was no escape; her dreams were filled with the howls of monstrous customers, clawing and biting at one another over merchandise.

And then came the creatures. Shadows that stalked the aisles, their forms flickering between something almost human and something utterly alien. They whispered in voices that sounded like her coworkers, their hate and venom twisting into mockery.

“You’re just like us, Sam,” they sneered. “Greedy. Bitter. Trapped.”

Years turned into decades. Sam became a ghost herself, her bitterness the only thing keeping her alive. She survived the labyrinth by outwitting the monsters, though the cost was her humanity. She forgot her name, her face, her past. She forgot everything but the store.

Running. Hallways.  Black goo. Vicious slapping sounds. Distant screams. Running.  Endless Shelves. Threatening Whispers. Product.  Want.  Shadows. Need.  Emptiness. Changing Hallways. Hiding. Demands. Danger. Mysterious smears of blood on the linoleum. Exhaustion. Running. 

Then, one day, she saw it—a door. Plain and unassuming, marked Employee Exit. 

Summoning the last of her strength, Sam pushed the door open.

Blinding light flooded her vision. She staggered forward, her knees buckling as she emerged into a bustling MegaMart. She looked down at her hands, now wrinkled and gnarled. Her reflection in a nearby mirror showed a woman aged far beyond her years, her eyes sunken but burning with the pain of survival.

Her heart, now a fragile thing, fluttered. She stumbled through it and found herself back in the breakroom. The clock on the wall read 11:58 PM, Thanksgiving night.

Her manager was there, leaning against the counter as though he had been waiting for her. He hadn’t aged a day.

“Good to see you, Sam,” he said, handing her a fresh MegaMart vest. “You’re on register tonight. Black Friday’s a big deal, you know.”

Sam opened her mouth to protest, to scream, but no sound came out. She put on the vest, her hands trembling, and walked out onto the sales floor. The aisles were chaos—customers clawed at one another for toasters and TVs. She took her place at the register, scanning item after item, the beep of the scanner drowning out her thoughts.

She glanced at her reflection in the glass of the counter. An old woman stared back at her, her face worn and hollow. Behind her, the manager watched, his smile too wide, his eyes too dark.

“Welcome back, Sam,” he whispered.

Somewhere in the distance, a monster’s guttural growl echoed, but no one seemed to notice. The automatic doors slid open, and a mob of customers flooded inside, their faces blank, their mouths open in silent screams. She felt the store swallow her whole.

Sam’s shift would never end.