Graveyard Shift at the Nightmare Factory

By Tom Cash - Posted Jan 15, 2026

It feels like I've been working third shift at the factory for as long as I can remember. I know I've had other jobs. I know I used to have a life before the factory, school, friends; all that normal stuff that provides contrast to our working lives. But for some reason, these days, all those things seem dim and unimportant - I hardly think about them at all, anymore. I just focus on my station. It's difficult to do anything else when I'm manning my station, because if I let my attention wander, things can get out of hand very quickly.

I consider myself to be a fairly neat and orderly person, so it's frustrating to look away for a second, only to turn back and discover that my console's display has rotated 90 degrees or is now inexplicably displaying everything in a language and alphabet that I don't recognize. I used to question this, but it has never seemed to have bothered anybody else, so I've learned to accept it, and deal with it whenever it comes up.

Besides, any time I'm forced to stop the production line due to a problem, I run the risk of attracting The Foreman. I don't like The Foreman. Something about the way he glides around, silently, like a ghost, I find extremely upsetting. If you asked me to describe His face, I'm afraid I'd be unable to. I can picture it in my mind, but it seems to shift subtly if I attempt to focus on any details. I dare not look Him in the face when He is in my presence - especially His eyes! - but then, nobody does. Whenever He is nearby, we all cower, our heads bowed as if in prayer, our gazes averted as if in the presence of a terrible and ancient god, and in our reverence, we hope beyond all hope that He does not turn his attention to one of us, to slide with liquid speed to our side and whisper His black static into our ears as we tremble in preternatural terror.

Thankfully, He is rarely nearby; and yet, He is ever-present, in the corners of my eyes. I'll look up and see Him gliding across one of the myriad catwalks that crisscross the upper levels of the factory, the ceiling of which stretches onward and upward beyond all measure or understanding of measure. I can see the ceiling, but it is distant in the way that stars are distant, looming the way mountains loom.

It is confounding the way the items on the production line shift and change in various, unpredictable ways. Sometimes I am quality checking book bindings, other times I am examining bottle caps to make sure they have properly sealed, and still other times I am shaving excess fiberglass off the edges of bathtubs, so that they can be sanded down and coated in polyurethane. It confuses me, but I don't let it get to me. I've always tried to go with the flow; I guess that's why I've stayed with this job for so long - the pay is good, and with all the overtime I've been putting in, I'm thinking my next check should be really sweet. Maybe one of these days my wife and I can go on a trip somewhere. I want to go somewhere warm. Arizona, maybe - I've always liked the desert.

I miss my wife. Her name is Kara. Is it? Yeah, I think it's Kara. You'd think I should remember that, but it's weird the things I have trouble remembering these days. Like, when was the last time I had a day off? It seems like I've been here forever! They even gave me a space of my own to sleep in. It's a big room, full of cubicles - the kind that have a roof and a door in them - and inside each one is a camp bed, an LED lamp, a folding chair, and a small locker. I'm sure I've slept there a couple times in the past, but for some reason, I can't remember when. I feel like it's been a long time since I've slept, but in a way, it's like I've been asleep all along. Does that make sense? I guess it doesn't, but it makes sense to me. I've had a lot of strange ideas lately, but they only seem strange when I ask myself how somebody else might respond to them. But that means I'm not crazy, at least. Crazy people don't question whether or not what they're thinking is crazy. I guess that means I'm safe.

I don't feel safe.

I feel sick.

Sometimes I find myself in the commissary, looking for something to eat. I know they serve all sorts of food there, but it seems like I always get there too late, and most of the food is already gone, and all that's left are things nobody wanted, like wilted iceberg lettuce and pale, flavorless succotash and greasy, awful-looking pizza which has been sitting under those heating lamps for far too long and probably tastes like cardboard with tomato paste smeared on it. It makes my stomach turn. If I look further down the line, sometimes I think I see something appealing, but when I get to it, it's just more of the same garbage.

The vending machines are even worse. I bought an apple once - usually I don't seem to have enough cash to afford anything, but this time I had a couple of quarters - and it looked nice and red and shiny, but when I bit into it, it was mealy and it tasted bad, so I threw it out. Afterwards, I stood over the trash bin for a long time, staring at it, sort of wishing I hadn't thrown it away. Why did I do that? When's the last time I had a meal? I don't know. I've been here for such a long time, but I don't remember sitting down and eating anything. So throwing the apple away felt stupid, one of those "why did I do that?" moments, but I ultimately decided that there was nothing I could do about it. I didn't have any more money, and I don't eat from the trash, I don't care how hungry I am.

Besides, I don't really feel hungry. As I said before, I feel sick.

It's that kind of slow, sinking feeling you get when you know you've messed something up really bad, and there's nothing you can do to fix it, so now all you can do is to either run away, or take responsibility for it. I don't want to run; I don't necessarily think it's so much a matter of strength of character, though - I just know that if I were to run, I'd never feel safe again. I'd always be looking over my shoulder.

But I don't feel safe now, anyway, so maybe I should have run.

But, run from what? I feel like I should know this. I feel like this is important - maybe the most important thing of all, the answer to all of this. But it escapes me; like a dream half-remembered, it haunts me and gnaws at my consciousness, bringing my attention to it again and again. Why is it so important? Why does it make me feel sick to my stomach?

It doesn't matter, shut it out. Try to think about something.

I was lost in one of these trains of thinking and found myself wandering through portions of the factory I didn't remember having seen before. I had left the commissary, disappointed as usual, and in considering the nauseous, slightly dizzy feeling that these trips usually left left me with, I had gotten caught up in those lost memories of desperate escape again, and found myself in a narrow, claustrophobic hallway with pressed aluminum walls and low ceilings. Doors, many of them reminiscent of the doors you'd find on the outside of a walk-in freezer, lined the walls on both sides.

After many twists and turns, I found myself hopelessly lost, and tried one of the doors at random. To my surprise, it was indeed a walk-in freezer. Why would there be a walk-in freezer in a factory? I remembered that I had been near the kitchens, so this must be used by it to store food, but why so many? I couldn't answer these questions, but intrigued by the discovery of another door at the other side of the freezer, I continued exploring. I found another freezer. And another. And another. I vaguely remembered a film I'd seen long ago, in which a group of strangers found themselves within a shifting maze of nearly identical rooms, many of them rigged with deadly traps. This alarmed me for a moment, but I realized it was foolish to worry about traps in a walk-in freezer, even in this most improbable of situations.

I should concern myself more with The Foreman. Surely I would have been marked as missing by now. No sooner had this thought occurred to me that I began to hear a rhythmic knocking or clapping noise, repeating with terrible precision. The sound came from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, and each slam slam slam echoed through my soul like a tombstone door slamming shut.

A cold, animal panic overtook my senses, and I found myself rushing through the endless maze of freezers, finally finding myself in an impossibly huge space. I had thought the factory ceiling was high, but this place was massive beyond understanding. I've never been troubled by agoraphobia, but now I understood - I understood all too well - what it must be like. The massiveness of the empty space was dizzying, I could feel it crushing me. And the light! That terrible light which seemed to come not from any specific source, but rather the air itself. It burned somehow, as if my soul were under a spotlight, exposing all the impurities. This might not have been so troubling if it had not been for the colossal indifference of it; any judgments rendered upon the stains on my soul were my own entirely, and the picture it painted of me was much, much different than what I had pictured myself to me. I always felt that I was a good man, a kind man, a good friend and a generous lover. But now, I saw myself not as others saw me, nor how I saw myself, but rather how I really was. I saw all the times I had ignored those in need out of convenience. I saw all the times I slighted people who desperately desired my support and approval. I saw all the times I acted out of selfishness and greed, often without even realizing it. I couldn't decide which was worse: the times I knew I was wrong, but did it anyway, or the times I was blind to my own indiscretions. How could I not see the harm I did to others?

It was too much. The light was too bright, too pure, it showed me too much. As I continued onward and outward, away from the light, I began to understand that impulse to run from this place. Whatever the factory was, I knew now that it was not what it had seemed. That it could contain a thing like this was beyond any known laws of reality, and it occurred to me that I couldn't remember ever having seen the factory from the outside. I don't think I'd ever even seen any windows! How could that be? I know I must have commuted here from home, but where was home? Why couldn't I remember? And where were the windows? I'd been wandering now for what seemed like hours, in a more or less straight line, and I'd still not encountered anything like an outside wall, a delineation between what was the factory and what wasn't the factory. So maybe it was all the factory. But if that was true, then how did I get here? Why did it feel like I'd been here for so long? I felt that sick feeling again, aware that something bad had happened to me, and that if only I could remember what it was, maybe I could leave this place.

Presently, the thudding began again, syncing with my heartbeat, pounding in my ears and behind my eyes. It was everywhere, completely omnipresent, and I realized that this time, it didn't matter what I did or where I went, the source of the noise would find me. And it did. Coalescing from nothing, pulsing in and out in time with the thudding, The Foreman stood before me, massive and dark and wraithlike, His eyes like chaos made manifest, His hands like tools of utter annihilation. His mouth dropped open like a tear in the fabric of space and time, and from it issued the black static - a sound like the end of time itself, threatening to dissolve me from the inside out, until I had never existed at all. I crouched involuntarily, my fingers clutched together over my head, my eyes squeezed shut, screaming so loudly that I felt my vocal cords burst.

And then it was over. Somehow, I was transported to the cubicle that served as my sleeping quarters, seated on my camp bed, my face resting in my hands, my elbows propped up on my thighs. The sense of panic had abruptly dissipated and I was unharmed. My relief at this commingled with a kind of disappointment, a deep sense of having messed up again, of having run when I should have stood and faced my fears. A wave of deja vu washed over me, and it occurred to me that this had happened before. The dissatisfying trip to the commissary followed by my having gotten lost in the tangled mess of hallways, the freezer maze, the light - oh God, the light - and my punishment, delivered to me swiftly by The Foreman. How many times had I been through this? How many times had I forgotten? What was The Foreman, really? And what was that light? How many times had I sat on this very bed, asking myself these very questions? I didn't know, but in my heart, it felt like it had happened many, many times. I found myself struggling to remember the last time I'd been home. It stood to reason that if I couldn't remember having entered the factory, then maybe I'd never left it, either. Home was a concept, a marker on a map, as distant as Pluto. I thought of my wife. What was her name? Carrie? Is that what I said before? Or was it Chelsea? Or Kelly? I felt like this was something I should know. I missed her. I wished I could remember her face.

Now that I had the benefit of remembering the whole process of finding and running from the light, I knew that my next action was always to return to my station and get back to work. I was afraid The Foreman would further torment me if I did not. But more than that, I was afraid of the alternative. It seemed that there were only two things that one could do in the factory - work tirelessly at their assigned station, or face the light. Time and time again, I had chosen to run. I had chosen fear. I had chosen sickness. I had chosen to forget.

I bolted up from my bed and tore open my locker. Had I opened it before? I wasn't sure; it seemed to me that I'd opened it only once, long, long ago, and I had put something in there. Something important. Something I absolutely needed if I was going to do what I knew I needed to do next.

But the locker was empty! My heart began hammering in my chest, and I dropped to my knees, close to total despair. It was gone! The thing - the important thing - was gone! I began to cry, and as my vision blurred, I caught a glimpse of a corner of thick, glossy paper sticking out from under the metal lip when the wall of the locker met its base. Drying my eyes, I tugged experimentally on the paper and discovered that I was looking at the back of a 3"x5" photograph. I turned it over, and saw that it was a picture of a happy-looking couple in their early thirties. They were clearly at some kind of picnic or summer festival - the woman held a glass of red wine aloft, making a silly face. The man was smirking, as if amused and a little annoyed by the fact that his photo was being taken.

I knew them. I knew that couple so well, but I couldn't for the life of me understand why. I flipped the photo over again and this time I noticed something I hadn't before - a handwritten caption which read, "A & K - July 4, 2007". A & K.

"A and K… A and K… A and K…" I said out loud, repeating it like a mantra.

I knew that this was somehow the key to something; perhaps everything. Standing up, I took one last look at the front of the photo, and then tucked it into my back pocket and walked to the commissary.

From the commissary, I slowly and methodically retraced my steps. Again, I heard the pounding noise, and again, panic began to rise up within me. I closed my eyes, took several deep breaths, and repeated the manta again, "A and K… A and K… A and K…" Eventually, the noise began to subside, until it was only faint background noise, familiar and somehow comforting, like the sound of a hammer pounding away on a bright Sunday morning, many blocks from your home. I realized now that it had always been that way, and to my surprise, I realized that, unless I was vastly mistaken, it was actually leading me toward the place I had previously run to in order to escape it.

I followed the sound, now trusting it to lead me safely to my intended destination. Again, I found myself inside the impossibly large room with the impossibly pure light. Once again, that dread flooded through me. I almost ran - almost - as I was again subjected to the reality of my own being, my ultimate truth. But I did not. Fighting every fiber of my instinct, I stayed in place, and I turned my eyes upwards to the light, and discovered its source, which seemed to be a shining flat rectangle.

The rectangle drifted closer to me, or rather I drifted closer to it; I can't be sure, for once I had faced the light fully, it had embraced and enveloped me, and I hung in its infinite, endless glow weightlessly. Direction had lost all meaning and I found that whether the rectangle was moving toward me, or vice-versa, it was my will that made it happen. I experimented by moving away, and as I did, I suddenly became aware that I was backing into darkness. I knew that if I let it, the darkness would consume me, and my fear would overtake me, trapping me in the factory once more. Instead, I resumed my approach.

Closer now, I saw the shape of a person peering out at me, as if the rectangle were a doorway to some other place, like a portal to another world. Unafraid, I drifted closer, and I began to make out details of the shape, despite the intensity of the light; eventually my vision resolved, and I saw, with a shock, that the man in the rectangle was the same man from the photograph. Had he come here to this place to rescue me? I reached out to him, and he to me, and as my fingers abruptly struck a cold, smooth surface, I finally understood.

It was a mirror. I was looking into a mirror. The man in the photograph had been me. I know this must sound foolish and obvious to you, but you must understand that I had been in this place for a long time - such a long, long time - and not once had I seen a mirror. I had forgotten my own face! And I had forgotten my wife - Kira, that was her name! How could I have forgotten her name, or those amazing green eyes that I had stared into so many times? So many details flashed by now. Dating. Our wedding. The time we came home from vacation only to discover that somebody had broken into our apartment - that was when we still lived in the city - and we were so freaked out we slept on the fold-out couch for three weeks so we could keep an eye on the door! So many memories. I remembered how she cried when was trying to help me after I had fallen from the roof. I was confused and I was having trouble seeing, but I was still able to recognize her, and I was still able to tell that she wasn't going to be able to help me. Nothing would, it was too late. I should never have gone up there on my own; I should have just called a roofing company, but I was determined to fix that leaky patch on my own, and I slipped trying to get back off the roof, and then I was laying on my back with Kira looking down at me, and there was blood on her hands, a lot of blood, and she was crying, and I just wanted to comfort her and tell her that I wasn't scared and that she shouldn't be either, and then it was too late.

How could I have forgotten?

For so long I had been running from this light. Not any longer. With a final, determined push, I moved deeper into the light - for I now realized that the mirror was not its source - and as I felt its warmth embrace and envelope me, I knew that my shift was finally over, and that I was finally going home.

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