Beachham Co-op

Working at a co-op isn’t particularly difficult, per se, but I’d argue good money that working at one built on the grounds of hell would, and tends to be.

I didn’t want to settle on a place like this, but when you live in Maine, it’s a bit hard to find good employment that isn’t a drive away.

Anyways, I needed a job right out of high school and unfortunately, this place was the best one.

Beachham Co-op. It’s the only one in our rundown dump of a town. You probably know the name. And if you’re really smart, you’d probably be able to guess that we’re a coastal town known for... yup.

Anyways, the beaches aren’t the only thing we’re known for. Our town... isn’t normal. Now I know, “all towns are kind of weird!” “All towns tend to be a bit strange!” Yeah, yeah, I know. But mine is really strange.

How strange? Like, ‘walking talking gargoyles coming into your store’ strange. ‘Little goblins that are surprisingly good at carpentry’ strange. ‘Historical figures once thought to be dead actually being alive and shopping at our co-op’ strange.

Get the idea yet? My town isn’t normal. And for as long as I’ve been alive, it hasn’t been.

I think the reason my parents haven’t gotten their heads out of the stupid gutter and moved yet is likely because of two things; money and we’re simply not close enough to any of the weird shit for it to endanger us.

I personally think it’s a piss poor excuse, but that’s just my opinion. Anyways, store stuff.

Grocery shopping is usually not supposed to be a difficult task. 9/10 times you’re fine. That is, unless, you somehow managed to walk through the doors of our shitty little non-Euclidean co-op, it’s going to be a lot more difficult to do that.

Normally, if you haven’t already left after seeing the “LEAVE IF YOU LIKE YOURSELF” sign, you’ll find yourself at the entrance area.

I’m not good with measurements, but if I had to guess, the co-op is about 15,000 square feet. Not too big, not too small. Anyways, the rest isn’t too different from a regular store. Straight ahead from the entrance we have our bulk aisle.

Facing the end of the store from the entrance, the snacks and candies are in the right side of the bulk aisle while the bigger items like rice and beans are on the left. Dead ahead of that, we have coolers lining the entire back portion of the store.

They contain what you think they do; drinks, cheeses, deli meats. They even have vegan stuff, should you swing that way. The last two cooler doors actually lead into small freezers where we keep our... frozen stuff.

The aisle next to bulk is grocery. Doesn’t matter what side you’re on; there is grocery everywhere here. Not much else to mention, but there’s this stuff called chili crisp that’s really good. My mom loves the hell out of it so I have to take like $9 aside and get a jar every shift.

We have a lot.

Next up we have the medicinal aisle. This is where we keep our tonics, bandaids, deodorants, etc. it’s essentially, well, the medical section. Not much to write home about but you’re likely to find what you’re looking for here.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention but the freezers cut off a bit before the end of the store and that’s where we keep our produce.

Next aisle over from medicinal is where we keep our baked goods. We don’t make them; they get delivered to us just like everything else.

Then we have the bathroom, break room, offices and all that boring stuff. I have a layout of the store drawn so I’ll put that image in here too.

I work with two other people, so I’ll tell you about them next.

Spike helps me out with stuff, he’s big and tall and all that. He’s not fat or anything though, he’s quite lanky. Strong though, doesn’t look like it. I reckon the guy’s maybe 6′3. He’s got spiked black hair, he’s 21 and he’s working here while waiting for online college classes to start back up. Funny, I’m going to do online classes too.

Anyways, Spike’s great, like, I could ask him to jump off a bridge with me and he’d ask “what time?!” great.

Lily is our other coworker. She’s a lot shorter than Spike at like 5′3 or something, I don’t know. She’s 20 and studying abroad from Wales. Said she “loved the way the store looked!” Not so sure about it now, huh?

Anyways, those are the two guys I work with the most, but there are a couple others. You’ll find out about them in upcoming parts.

Okay, now onto the good part; the work.

My job isn’t particularly dangerous, that completely depends on who comes in when I’m working. 9/10 times it’s some benign individual who’s just a little weird, but we’ve had some weirder shit come in before.

Like I said, gargoyles, goblins. Hell, we had a guy who we thought was Uncle Sam come in once. It’s kind of weird and awesome at the same time.

Ingredients for dinner splice with world ending deities and all you get to do is watch as it happens. We don’t exactly have the means to deal with it either, so do with that what you will.

I guess it’s actually time to stop beating around the bush and tell you about some of the stuff that’s happened. I think June 10th, 2025 was the first real weird shift I had. So yeah, here goes.

Whether what I’m saying is believable or not is entirely up to you, but do know one thing going into this; every word of what I’m about to tell you has happened. I have four other people who can vouch for me directly and a town of others to do so to a lesser extent.

June 10th, 2025.

I didn’t expect much in the way of action when I opened up the entrance door, the bell jingling to notify the store-goers that someone had entered. Spike was already at the register, giving me a small wave.

“What’s good little man?” He spoke, slapping my hand and as he put it, ‘dapping me up’.

I groaned a little before finishing the handshake. “Well, I’m here, so things could be better.”

“That’s the spirit.” He replied, slinking back to behind the register. “Not much happening today, so you’re in luck.”

That was good. Kent, our manager had sent me my tasks for today. And I wasn’t liking how they looked.

FILL UP BULK CONTAINERS

FRONT ALL GROCERY AND COOLER ITEMS

HELP OLD PEOPLE (they need it)

CLEAN BATHROOM AND SWEEP FLOORS

Okay, it wasn’t THAT bad, but I’m a lazy fuck so anything that involved more than lifting a finger wasn’t going to be fun.

Begrudgingly, I went to the bulk aisle and began working.

When I tell you the amount of relief I felt hearing that bell jingle, you won’t believe me. All I’ll say is that it was damn near palpable.

I went to the front and Spike was still at the register.

“Well?” He spoke, “go and greet em!”

I stood in front of our customers and was about to let out our daily “welcome to Beachham Co-op!” when I actually got a good look at who was in front of me.

“S-Spike?” I asked, looking over at him. “What... the hell?”

“Yup.”

18 years on this planet and my habit of not using psychedelics was brought, no, it was ripped out of my conscience and brought to the forefront of my mind. I couldn’t convince myself that what I was seeing was real, but the fact that Spike could see it too only told me one thing.

It was.

Standing before my shockingly calm friend and a very befuddled me, was a group of gargoyles. They weren’t huge or perching like the ones you see in gothic European-esque media. They were all heights ranging from 5′6-5′11. Image below for reference

I turned to Spike again. “The hell? These are real, right? Right?!”

“Unfortunately, I think they are.”

“Fuck.” I said under my breath. Couldn’t let our customers hear me cuss. It felt weird.

I composed myself and asked them again.

“Welcome to Beachham Co-op, how may I help you?”

To give you an idea, there were four of them. And they were all wearing regular clothing. Just imagine a stone chimera-esque being with normal clothes.

“I...” the lead spoke, “food.”

“Okay!” I exclaimed. “We can help you with that! What are you looking for?”

“Snacks. Do you have them?”

“Yes, we do! Anything in particular you want?”

“Something with sugar. We want to please some individuals, get on their good sides.”

“Alright,” I replied, “we have candy, cookies, whatever you want!”

“Mmm. Baked goods. That sounds... delicious.”

“We can make that happen.”

“Let’s.” He spoke before positioning himself behind me. “I’ll follow you.”

I led the way. We went from the entrance of the bulk aisle past grocery and medicinal to the bakery shelf. I pointed and presented their options to them.

After a few minutes, the lead looked at me.

“Cookies.”

Alright, cookies it was.

“What’re you looking for? We got chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, all that st—.”

“Oatmeal cookies? Okay.”

“Okay. We good?”

“Yes, just one more thing. What’s that?”

“What is what?”

“Oatmeal”

“You don’t know what oatmeal is?”

“Afraid not.”

Okay, I could explain this easily enough, but how did someone exist for any number of years and not know what oatmeal was? Strange world we live in.

“Okay, I can tell you.”

“Thank you. What is it?”

“Well,” I spoke, “it’s uh—it’s a breakfast item, kinda. You can eat it in the morning, with like maple syrup and stuff like that—oh—or, uh—you can mix it with stuff and eat it the next morning. Overnight oats, but you can also make cookies and baked goods with it.”

“Ah, I see. Thank you.”

I was about to reply to him when he interrupted his own sentence.

“Wait, what’s breakfast?”

“Uh, well, it’s typically the meal you eat in the morning. You know, breaking your fast.”

“I see. Raisins?”

Come on, I was starting to become exasperated. How did these guys not know what RAISINS WERE? I pushed those thoughts to the back of my head and replied.

“Okay, raisins are dried grapes. Grapes are fruit. Fruit is the edible part of a plant, pretty much. I don’t think I need to tell you what plants are.”

“You don’t. Thank you so much.”

After we finished our lecture on just about everything under the sun, they took the cookies and went to the register.

I went up next to Spike and continued talking to them.

“Party tonight? You guys got a lot of cookies.”

“That’s one way to put it. We are going to attempt reconciliation with our neighboring community.”

“Vampires?” I asked jokingly.

“No. Werewolves.” Well, I didn’t expect that of all things.

Spike finished ringing them up, handed over the receipt and sent the stony boys on their way.

I looked at him. “Dude, what in the hell was that? Gargoyles just came in and bought out our supply of oatmeal raisin cookies.”

“I couldn’t tell you, Ollie. Shit is weird around here. Oh! This must’ve been your first time experiencing something like this, huh? Kent always jokes about the store being built above a gate to hell. I used to not believe him, but—.”

“No, Spike. You just acted like they were any other customer. The hell was that all about?”

“Well, they were just regular old customers. I’ve had some other weird ones too, so it isn’t that strange to me.”

“Who have you seen man?”

“I’ll tell you, but be sure to write it down. It’s pretty cool!”

“Alright.”

What Spike told me next wasn’t stranger than the gargoyles, but it was certainly something in and of itself.

It was how I found out that we have a cult in our little old town in Maine.