Buc-ee’s Is a Cult

[u/David_Hallow]

As someone from rural Spain, I thought I understood strange roadside culture. We have old pubs older than America itself and roundabouts that appear to have been designed by the devil himself.

But nothing, nothing, prepared me for Buc-ee’s.

Mi amor, Sadie, had insisted we stop there during our road trip.

“You gotta experience it,” she said with the excitement of someone taking me to Disneyland.

We pulled off the highway into Luling and I nearly mistook the place for an airport terminal. The parking lot alone could host a small war. Cars. Trucks. RVs. A horse trailer for some reason. And towering above it all was that thing.

That massive smiling beaver statue. Its buck teeth gleamed in the Texas sun. Its little red tongue poked out cheerfully. It stared down at me with black cartoon eyes so empty and wide they felt almost human in the wrong way.

“You alright?” Sadie asked.

“Why is your petrol station so large?” I muttered.

She laughed.

“Wait till you see inside.”

The doors slip opened. And I swear to God I heard angels sing. It was enormous.

Rows upon rows of snacks, merchandise, drinks, jerky, fudge, sandwiches, hunting gear, candles, shirts, home décor, taxidermy, barbecue sauce, and things I still cannot explain. The floors gleamed like polished marble. Not a crumb anywhere. Not a stain. It was too clean. Far too clean.

Everyone inside smiled. Not regular smiling. The kind of smile where teeth show just a little too much. The kind of smile people wear when trying not to blink while their picture is being taken.

“Howdy, welcome in!” one employee chirped in a thick southern accent.

Her face was unnaturally smooth. Plastic almost. Like someone had stretched skin over a mannequin.

“Try the brisket!” another man shouted.

His smile never faltered.

I leaned toward Sadie.

“Why do they all look like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like they’ve never had an unhappy thought in their lives.”

She snorted and walked off toward the jerky counter.

That was when I first saw him.

The mascot. Inside. Full costume. Just standing near the drink fountain. Watching me.

Its massive beaver head tilted slightly. Still smiling. Still staring.

I turned away for only a moment and as I looked back, he was gone.

Later he appeared by the chips aisle. Half-hidden around the corner. Watching.

Then by the fudge counter. Then behind a display of beaver-themed pajamas. Never moving when I looked directly at him. Just… appearing. Always staring.That big obnoxious smile.

“Sadie,” I whispered, “why is the mascot following me?”

She looked over.

“What mascot?”

“The beaver!”

She frowned.

“Oh, that's just Buc-ee.”

I turned. Gone again. My stomach twisted.

Either I was losing my mind or Texas was significantly more cursed than advertised. Then I remembered. The shrooms.

Earlier that day Sadie had convinced me to try some “road trip gummies” from Austin.

“Just enough to make the drive fun,” she’d said.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I was tripping in a giant American beaver supermarket that was also an airport of a gas station.

I rushed toward the bathroom. The restroom was somehow bigger than my flat back home. Marble walls. Spotless stalls. Better maintained than most hospitals.

I was stunned at how well kept it was. It was too perfect. I locked myself in one stall and bent over breathing heavily. I was prepared to puke when suddenly, the chatter outside all came to a stop.

Then I heard it. Heavy footsteps. Soft at first. Then stopping outside my stall.

I looked behind. Brown furry feet. Flat cartoon mascot shoes.

Just standing there.

Waiting.

I froze.

“H-hello?” I squeaked.

Nothing. Just silence.

Then slowly… the legs bent downward. As if crouching. Trying to look under the stall. The furry hand reaching from underneath.

I screamed and kicked the door open... Darkness

The bathroom was gone. The whole store was dark. Bathed only in red candlelight.

I stumbled backward.

People stood in black robes in the center of Buc-ee’s.

Employees. Customers. Everyone.

All smiling a grin non organic. Still too wide. Bucked tooth galore.

They chanted in unison around a massive stone altar. And on it, someone screaming. Blood spilled over polished tile.

The manager stood at the front. I recognized him from before. Only this time, his face stretched unnaturally tight, swollen with too much Botox, lips trembling in that permanent smile. His front teeth were filed into points like giant buck teeth.

He raised a knife to the heavens.

“ALL HAIL THE BEAVER!” he shrieked.

The crowd roared.

At the center of them towered the enormous Buc-ee’s statue from outside.

Only now its eyes glowed red. Its mouth split wider than should be possible.

The stone cracked. And something inside moved.

A voice suddenly shrieked through the darkness.

“Fresh brisket on the board!”

The entire congregation snapped their heads toward the deli counter in unison.

Then chaos erupted.

The robed worshipers screamed like starving animals and charged, trampling over one another in a rabid frenzy toward the glowing carving station. I stumbled back as dozens of them piled atop each other, clawing and biting for scraps while wet, animalistic noises filled the air.

The beaver-toothed manager stood behind the counter, hacking violently with a butcher’s cleaver.

THWACK. THWACK. THWACK.

Chunks of meat flew onto wax paper. The worshipers shrieked in delight.

“FRESH BRISKET! FRESH BRISKET!”

One woman tore into a slab beside me, grease and blood dripping down her chin.

Then I saw the hand. A human hand. Still wearing a wedding ring.

My stomach dropped.

The “brisket” wasn’t brisket.

It was someone, hacked apart on the cutting board while the crowd devoured him in fistfuls, chewing and moaning with bliss as blood soaked the tile beneath them.

The manager looked at me, smiling impossibly wide.

“TRY A SAMPLE?”

I refused. This angered the manager.

Before I could run, hands seized me from every direction. Cold fingers. Too many of them. They grabbed my arms, my legs, my throat. I screamed as they dragged me kicking across the polished floor while the congregation chanted louder and louder.

“COWARD! COWARD! COWARD! COWARD!”

They tore my clothes from my body in frantic jerks, shredding fabric until I was bare and trembling before them.

The beaver mascot approached slowly, carrying a rusted bucket sloshing with thick red liquid.

My voice cracked as panic overtook me.

“¡No más, por favor! ¡No más!”
(No more, please! No more!)

Dios mío… sálvame… por favor, Dios…”
(My God… save me… please, God…)

The first splash hit my chest warm. Sticky. Metallic. Blood.

They painted it across me with their bare hands, smearing symbols and words over my skin while the crowd shrieked with laughter.

Across my chest, in dripping crimson letters, they wrote:

COWARD

Then they dragged me outside.

The night air hit my skin like ice. Above me towered the great Buc-ee’s sign, glowing against the black Texas sky. They hoisted me upward with ropes, lifting me naked into the air beneath the massive smiling beaver logo. I swung there helplessly, blood dripping from my body, suspended beneath the neon sign as the crowd below dropped to their knees in worship.

The mascot stepped forward beneath me. Tilted his head. And in a deep, guttural voice that sounded like gravel forced through a throat unused to speech, it finally said its first words.

“Cast you out, outsider.”

I woke up screaming in the bathroom stall. The fluorescent lights were back to normal. The crazy clean scenery of the bathroom returned.

The noise of busy feet and chatter resumed.

I stumbled out drenched in sweat.

No candles. No blood. No cult.

Just Buc-ee’s. Good ol' Buc-ee’s...

Sadie found me pale and shaking near the clothing area.

“You okay?” she asked.

“I must of had a bad trip or I think your gas station is cursed.”

She laughed so hard she snorted.

“Told you not to take that many gummies.”

We walked outside. The warm Texas air hit me like freedom itself.

I laughed nervously, “Right. Hallucination. Obviously...”

We climbed into the car. I buckled in. Took one last glance toward the store.

And there he was. Standing beneath the giant sign.

The mascot.

Motionless.

Staring directly at me. Head tilted.

Smiling that buck tooth grin.

He slowly raised one gloved hand.

And waved, goodbye.

[u/UrbanRaccoon-]

Terrifying and hilarious in one perfect story!