A Gentle Warning

The laminated sign, taped to the glass door of Liam’s bar, was a masterpiece of bureaucratic understatement. It read:

NOTICE: Due to recent incidents, we advise patrons to avoid the alleyway behind the establishment after 2:00 AM. Management appreciates your cooperation.

Liam had typed it herself, after the second time she’d had to hose down the back steps. It was a warning nobody took seriously. The regulars, a mix of jaded expats and nocturnal Thais, would read it, snort, and order another Singha. They’d joke about the soi dogs or a drunken farang stumbling into the rubbish bins. Liam noticed something that the regulars missed. They didn’t hear the sound.

It wasn’t a sound you heard with your ears, not really. It was a sound that bloomed in the back of your skull, as the vibration of a gong struck in a deep cave. A low, resonant hum that made your teeth ache and your eyes water. It was the sound of something being profoundly wrong.

The first time, she’d been closing up. 2:30 AM. The last customer, a lonely Australian named Dave, had just staggered out, and she was counting the till. The hum started, a subtle change in pressure in the air. She’d dismissed it as the old refrigerator kicking on. Then she heard the clatter. It came from the alley. A sound like a sack of coconuts being dropped.

Liam was a practical woman. She’d grown up in Isaan, her grandmother’s stories of phi and forest spirits a familiar, if unheeded, part of her childhood. She wasn’t superstitious, not really. But she was cautious. She grabbed the heavy wooden pestle she used for som tam and peered through the small window in the back door.

The alley was a slit of darkness between two buildings, smelling of damp concrete, rotting fruit, and the piss of a thousand stray cats. The single, flickering bulb above the door cast a sickly yellow pool of light. At the edge, she saw something. A shape. It was man-shaped, but the proportions were wrong. Too tall, too thin. Its limbs were like black bamboo stalks, jointed in places they shouldn’t be. Something made the figure hunch over. Something that looked like one of the soi dogs.

There was a wet, tearing sound. A crunch. The hum in her head intensified, a wave of nausea washing over her. She saw a long, spindly arm reach down and pick up a piece of the dog. Something that wasn’t fur and glistened like wet obsidian coated the arm. The thing straightened up, and for a second, it turned its head.

It had no face. Just a smooth, dark oval, like a polished river stone. But she felt it looking at her. A cold, dispassionate gaze that pierced the door, the wood, her skin. It wasn’t a gaze of malice, but of simple, terrifying recognition. It had seen her seeing it.

She stumbled back from the door, her heart hammering against her ribs. The pestle clattered to the floor. By the time she’d found the courage to look again, the alley was empty. The only sign anything had happened was a dark, viscous stain on the concrete and a single, chewed-up paw.

She told no one. Who would believe her? The police would laugh. Her friends would think she’d been sampling her own stock. So she typed up the notice, a flimsy shield of officialdom against the primal fear that now lived in her gut.

The second incident happened a week later. A young British backpacker, full of bravado and cheap whiskey, had decided the notice was a joke. He’d gone out the back for a cigarette, laughing about “Liam’s ghost.” He never came back in. They found his passport and one of his sandals in the alley the next morning. The police report cited “missing person, presumed drowned,” a catch-all for anything they didn’t want to deal with. Liam knew better. She’d seen the way the air in the alley shimmered that night, the way the hum had been so loud it felt like her brain was vibrating.

The fear became a part of her life. It was a low-grade fever she couldn’t shake. She stopped using the back door entirely, taking the rubbish out through the front. She’d jump at shadows, her eyes scanning the dark corners of her bar for that tall, thin silhouette. The creature was always on her mind. What was it? A Phi Krathong? A Krasue? Her grandmother’s stories had included nothing like this. Those were spirits with motivations, with histories. This thing felt ancient, empty. A predator.

One night, a month after the backpacker, she was closing up again. It was raining, a torrential downpour that turned the street into a river and made the world feel small and enclosed. The bar was empty. She was just about to lock the front door when the hum began. It was different this time. Louder. Closer.

It wasn’t coming from the alley. It was coming from inside the bar.

Her blood ran cold. She stood frozen, her hand on the lock, listening. The hum was emanating from the storeroom, a small, windowless room she used for extra stock. The door was ajar, a sliver of blackness visible.

Her mind screamed at her to run, to get out into the rain, not to look. But a strange, morbid curiosity took over. This was it. The thing she’d been dreading. It was here. She had to see.

She crept towards the storeroom, her footsteps silent on the damp floor. She pushed the door open.

The room was dark, but she could see it. It was crouched in the corner, its back to her. It was making a soft, wet clicking sound, as if it were chewing on something. On the surrounding floor were the contents of a box of beer bottles, but the glass was… wrong. It was twisted and fused, as if exposed to immense heat. The air in the room was cold, unnaturally so, and smelled of ozone and deep, wet earth.

It must have sensed her. The clicking stopped. The hum in her head became a deafening roar.

Slowly, it turned.

It didn’t turn like a person. Its head rotated a full 180 degrees; the smooth, featureless face swivelling to meet her. And then it stood. It unfolded, its limbs extending with a series of sickening cracks. Rising higher and higher, its head brushed the low ceiling. It was impossibly tall. It had to stoop to fit in the room.

It had no mouth, but she felt it smile. A cold, empty smile that promised nothing but oblivion. It took a step towards her, its movements fluid and silent.

Liam didn’t scream. She couldn’t. The terror was a physical weight on her chest, crushing the air from her lungs. She just stumbled backward out of the storeroom and slammed the door shut. She leaned against it, her whole body trembling.

She could hear it on the other side. Not footsteps, but a soft, chitinous scraping. It was touching the door. Feeling it. The wood groaned under a pressure that was more than physical. She could feel a coldness seeping through the door, into her back, into her bones.

Then, as suddenly as it started, it stopped. The hum in her head vanished. The bar was silent, save for the pounding of the rain outside and her own ragged breathing.

She didn’t dare open the storeroom door. She fled the bar, locking it behind her, and didn’t return for two days. When she finally did, it was with a friend, a former Thai boxer named Lek who owed her a favour. The storeroom was empty. The box of beer was untouched. Everything was normal. Too normal.

But the fear never left her. It had taken root. The bar, once her sanctuary, was now a cage. The creature wasn’t just in the alley anymore. It was in the walls, in the shadows, in the silence. It was waiting.

She tried to sell the bar, but there were no buyers. The word of the story and the unspoken reputation of the place had gotten around. The locals avoided it. The expats found other places to drink. Her business withered and died. She found herself trapped.

The last time she saw it was a week before she wrote this. She was sitting alone in the dark, empty bar, a bottle of Lao Khao in front of her. Fear no longer gripped her. She was tired. The hum returned, a familiar, unwelcome guest. It was coming from the front door this time.

She didn’t look. She poured another shot.

The door didn’t open. Instead, a face pressed against the glass. Not the smooth, featureless oval. This was an actual face. A man’s face, she thought, but distorted. It was the face of the British backpacker. His eyes were gone, replaced by voids of absolute black. His mouth was open in a silent scream.

And then, behind his face, another appeared. The face of Dave, the Australian. And another. The faces of people she’d seen in the news, missing persons from all over the city. They were all there, pressed against the glass, their empty eyes staring in at her. A collection. A trophy case.

The creature had been busy. It wasn’t just feeding. It was collecting. And it had saved her for last.

She knew then what it was. A hunter of souls, a cosmic janitor swept up the lonely, the lost, and those who would go unnoticed. Seeking the empty spaces in the world, the cosmic janitor explored the dark alleys and forgotten corners. The warning sign accomplished nothing. The warning targeted people who were still part of the world. She was no longer one of them.

She’s writing this now, by the faint light of her phone, in the back of her own bar. The hum is back. It’s coming from the storeroom again. The door is opening. She can see the tall, thin shape in the darkness. It’s waiting for her to finish.

The warning nobody took seriously was the truest thing she ever wrote. But it wasn’t a warning for them. It was a eulogy for herself.

NOTICE: Due to recent incidents, we advise patrons to avoid the alleyway behind the establishment after 2:00 AM. Management appreciates your cooperation.

The END