One Task at a Time

The scanner only shows you one task. That’s the whole system. You finish it, you scan the bin, and the next one shows up. You never get to see what’s coming, and after a while you stop wanting to.

I’ve worked overnights at the warehouse for two years. 1:20 to 11:50, four nights a week. I know which aisle lights buzz and which forklift squeals on the turn by dock 6. That’s why I noticed when the tasks went wrong.

At 2:04am the first one said: PICK: 1 BOX ZIP TIES. AISLE 14, BIN C-3.

Normal. I walked over, grabbed it, scanned it. Beep.

PICK: 1 PLUSH BEAR, BROWN. AISLE 22, BIN A-1.

Also normal. We sell a million of those. I tossed it in the tote. Beep.

STOW: 1 WORK GLOVE, LEFT. AISLE 22, BIN A-2.

I looked down. I was holding my left glove in my right hand. I don’t remember taking it off. My hand was cold, like it had been off for a while. There was nobody else in Aisle 22. I put the glove in A-2 because that’s what you do. You don’t argue with the scanner. Your rate drops.

Beep.

PICK: 1 BADGE. AISLE 40, BIN 0.

There’s no Bin 0. Bins start at 1. I walked to Aisle 40 anyway, way out in the back where they keep the overflow pallets, and on the bottom shelf, right where a Bin 0 would be if there was one, sat an associate badge face down.

I flipped it over. DANA R.

Dana worked the station next to mine until about three weeks ago. She went on break at 4am and never came back. Her car sat in the lot until noon. Management said she quit. Everybody said she quit.

I scanned the badge. It beeped like any other item.

DO NOT TURN AROUND.

That’s it. No aisle, no bin. Just that. And I swear the screen waited for me. The little loading circle didn’t spin. It just held there.

I didn’t turn around. I’m not stupid. I stood in Aisle 40 and listened. Fans, conveyors, the radio somebody always leaves on at pack. And under that, close, the sound of someone breathing through their mouth. Slow. Patient. Right behind my left shoulder, where my glove should’ve been.

The light at the far end of the aisle went out. Then the next one. Then the next. Like something was walking toward me from the front, too.

Beep. Task complete. I hadn’t scanned anything.

WALK FORWARD. DO NOT RUN.

I walked. The breathing walked with me. It never got closer and never fell back. It kept perfect pace, the way you match someone’s steps when you’re trying not to be heard. I passed the dark spot at the end of the aisle and didn’t look into it. My eyes watered. I kept them on the screen.

Beep.

SCAN YOUR BADGE.

You scan your badge to go on break, to clock out, to prove you’re you. I pulled it off my lanyard and my hands were shaking so hard it took three tries.

The screen flashed red. BADGE ALREADY ASSIGNED.

Then: PICK: 1 ASSOCIATE.

The breathing behind me stopped. It didn’t fade. It just stopped, the way someone stops when they’re about to speak.

I ran. I know it said not to. I ran all the way to the break room, past three people who looked at me like I was crazy, and locked myself in the bathroom until the day shift came in.

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My manager pulled me aside at 11:50. I figured I was getting written up for abandoning my station. Instead he showed me my numbers. Perfect rate. Every task completed on time. All the way through 11:49.

“Good night,” he said. “Whatever you did, keep doing it.”

My scanner logged me as working the whole shift. My badge was scanned in at every bin I never touched. Somebody did my tasks for me, one at a time, all night, while I sat on a bathroom floor.

I went back to Aisle 40 before I left. Bin A-2 in Aisle 22 was empty. My glove was gone. In Aisle 40, on the bottom shelf where Bin 0 isn’t, there were two badges now. Dana’s, face up.

And mine.

I’m still wearing mine. I checked a hundred times. It’s right here on my lanyard. Same photo, same name.

I go back in tonight at 1:20. I need the job. If you work overnights and your scanner ever gives you a task with no bin number, don’t scan it. And whatever it tells you next, don’t do it.

I can’t stop thinking about the last thing on my screen before I clocked out. It wasn’t a task. It was the little preview line under it, the one that’s always blank.

NEXT: ASSOCIATE, 1. AISLE 40. BIN 0.