Aisle Twelve Still Checks In

the radio's supposed to go quiet after eleven, once the last register closes and it's just me doing overnight resets alone back here. check ins are how the district tracks whether we're actually alive, a button press every hour, aisle number, initials, done.

at 2:16 something comes through that isn't me. aisle twelve, the initials of a guy who got let go in may and walked out mid shift without ever turning in his badge. that badge should have been deactivated the same week.

i tell myself it's a stuck cache, an old check in queued somewhere and finally sent through late, because that happens, i've seen it happen before. then it happens again at 2:16 the next hour, same aisle, same initials, and twelve is the freezer section nobody stocks after ten because the compressor's too loud to hear anything else back there.

policy says any check in from a restricted zone gets physically verified inside fifteen minutes, or i have to call it in and wait for someone to come watch the cameras with me while i explain that i heard it and didn't look.

i put my hand on the radio. i don't press anything yet.

i start walking toward twelve anyway, slow, telling myself i'll turn back at the dairy case if it's nothing.

i don't reach the dairy case in this telling. i still don't know if i'm going to.