Horrorstör
Something is wrong at Orsk, the sprawling Scandinavian furniture superstore on the edge of Cleveland. Every morning the staff arrive to find the showroom vandalized overnight: shelves toppled, glassware smashed, a foul smell in the air the cleaning crew can't place. The security cameras record nothing. With sales sinking and corporate breathing down their necks, three employees agree to work a secret nine-hour shift through the night to catch whoever is responsible.
Amy is a cynical twenty-something clock-watcher who just wants a transfer and a bigger paycheck. Her relentlessly upbeat manager Basil sees the overnight patrol as a chance to prove himself, and kindly veteran clerk Ruth Anne comes along for the company. But the store they think they know so well becomes a labyrinth after dark, and the thing haunting its identical model rooms has been waiting a long time for visitors.
Grady Hendrix's Horrorstör is designed to look like a mail-order furniture catalog, complete with product illustrations that curdle from cheerful to horrifying as the night goes on. Equal parts genuine haunted-house novel and razor-sharp satire of consumer culture and soul-deadening retail work, it's a fast, funny, and surprisingly frightening read about the horrors of the modern workplace.
A cynical retail clerk who joins an overnight shift to catch a vandal haunting the store.
The sadistic 19th-century warden of the Cuyahoga Panopticon, the prison that once stood on the site; his vengeful spirit now haunts the store.
A warm, longtime Orsk clerk who joins the night watch out of loyalty.
A homeless man secretly sheltering in the store overnight, initially suspected of causing the disturbances.
A coworker secretly running a late-night ghost-hunting session in the store.
Grady Hendrix wrote the novel as a parody of big-box Scandinavian furniture retailers like IKEA. Illustrator Michael Rogalski created product illustrations for the fictional Orsk store's furniture, which grow more disturbing as the story progresses, giving the finished book the look of a mail-order catalog, complete with a store map and a delivery order form.