The man in the red cap looked at her, eyes lingering just too long. It was more than curiosity. She was pretty. But she also looked young for her age, which was eighteen. The man was at least sixty-five.   

She saw him looking at her and she flashed him an earnest smile. People looked at her often while she was at work. Usually before they asked where something was. 

‘Can I help you sir?’

The man smiled too, but it was a strange smile. Not warm and genuine like hers. He shook his head. He wasn’t embarrassed that he’d been caught looking.

The girl felt uncomfortable, so she looked away and continued stacking the cans of San Marzano tomatoes. But she remained smiling, giving him the benefit of the doubt.

The man moved closer to her and looked at the cans. 

‘These good ‘maters?’ He wasn’t from Jersey. 

‘Yeah, they’re awesome. All the Italian recipes on TikTok use them.’

The man smiled again. His eyes flicked down to her name tag. ‘Ah don’t watch TikTok videos much. Moves too fast fer me.’

The girl looked at him again and smiled, awkwardly. Something about the way he said “moves too fast” made her hair bristle. He lingered on the phrase a little unnaturally. She suddenly got an itch on the bottom of her foot, under the walker brace boot.

‘Yeah, it’s kinda terrible for your brain.’

‘What’s so special bout ‘em?’ He picked a can up but continued to look at her.

‘Um, well, I don’t know. I guess they’re just full of tomato flavour. Super juicy.’ 

The tip of his tongue protruded between his thin lips and worked its way side to side. He didn’t break eye contact. 

‘Attention, FreshMart employees, team member to registers, team member to registers.’

She turned away from the man to listen and break the uncomfortable stare. Then turned back, forcing a smile.

‘I better go help out. Have a great day.’

The man smiled again. 

When she turned, she could feel him watching her limp away.

Fifteen minutes later she was scanning produce at the register. There was a queue of four customers waiting in line. 

‘That’ll be forty-five ninety-five please.’

She looked up to smile at the customer and over his shoulder saw that the man was approaching the end of her line. He was smiling at her again.

The customer handed her a stack of notes. 

‘Thank you, sir. Have a great day.’

She quickly scanned the other registers and saw that her line was comfortably the longest. She shifted in her chair and smiled at the next customer.

‘Good afternoon, ma’am. Did you find everything you wanted today?’

The girl quickly scanned her line and saw the man standing at the back smiling. His eyes were fixed on her. Her mouth felt dry.

Ten minutes later, and despite two other registers being totally vacant for at least two or three minutes, he reached the front of the line.

The girl shifted in her chair and forced a smile. ‘Hey there. Did you get any tomatoes?’

The man’s smile widened and showed his teeth. Crooked and nicotine stained. ‘I aint like maters much.’

‘Well maybe that’s because you never had any good ones.’ 

‘Maybe.’ 

She looked around, taking hold of a bottle of rye whisky he had put on the conveyor. He also had an elasticated compression bandage, a reel of coarse twine and pair of gardening gloves.

He cleared his throat. ‘You like whisky?’

She smiled and shook her head. Her face flushing. ‘I can’t sir, I’m too young.’

He licked his lips like before. ‘Never stopped me.’ 

She hurried. ‘Is that everything for you today sir?’

‘You got backa?’

She looked confused.

‘To-bac-co.’

‘Oh, um, yeah we do but you gotta go to the dispenser register by the door for that, sorry.’

‘Whut you sorry for?’

‘Oh, nothing I suppose. It’s just a habit.’

‘Got any other habits?’

She felt her foot itching again. ‘Um, I mean I suppose I spend too long staring at my phone.’ She laughed nervously.

He grunted. ‘Miss whut’s right in front of yer face.’

‘Yeah.’

He grunted again and smiled.

‘Um, well, that’s twenty-five dollars forty-five cents please.’

The man handed her a stack of crumpled notes. His rough fingertips brushed against her hand as he passed it over. 

She shivered. 

‘Thank you, sir. We’ll see you again soon. Have a great day.’

He smiled. ‘Sure will.’ He looked down at his hand as she dropped the change into his palm. Then he muttered, ‘super juicy.’

‘Pardon me?’

The man looked back into her eyes and revealed the brown teeth. ‘Oh nothin’.’

He turned away slowly, maintaining eye contact too long.

She watched him leave and gradually the hair on her arms and neck settled back down. Her manager approached.

‘You alright? That guy giving you trouble?’

She turned to face him and smiled again, warmth returning. ‘Oh no. I’m fine.’

‘Alright. You can head out back and finish scanning in the inventory.’

She nodded and hopped down onto her good leg off the high swivel chair. She lowered the walker brace and brushed her starched apron down flat.

The man in the red cap came again the next day. 

The girl was leaving the staff room near the liquor aisle when she saw him turning into one of the other aisles. She hurried past looking the other way. 

The manager caught her arm and hurriedly pulled his hand away, realising the manhandling was probably inappropriate.

‘Hey, sorry, can you jump on a register for me? We got a little backlog here.’

She looked at him and smiled meekly. ‘Um, yeah, sure.’

The manager saw the trepidation. ‘Everything alright? Sorry I grabbed your arm there.’

‘Oh no, all good. I’m good.’

‘Okay, number three is free.’

She seated herself and signed into the register. She forced a smile as a customer approached.

‘Good morning. How’s your day?’

The lady smiled back. She was grey haired, soft featured and kind looking. It made the girl feel more comfortable.

‘I’m alright thank you dear. How’s yours? You look like you saw a ghost.’

The girl laughed. ‘I think I just might have.’

‘Well, if the pine barrens keep getting chopped up, I guess there’s nowhere else for them to go than FreshMarts in Pemberton.’ The woman’s voice was rich and throaty, a sixty-a-day from fourteen kind of voice with a hint of an accent the girl couldn’t place. 

She started scanning the woman’s groceries. ‘A bunch of us camped out there last summer. Down by the Devil’s Hairbrush up from Pomeroy’s Corner. Sat around the fire telling ghost stories. Black Dog, Jersey Devil, Golden Lady, all that stuff. Real spooky.’

‘The Golden-Haired Lady you mean. Won’t find her up by the hairbrush. She looks out over the sea. A bunch of kids partyin’ probably won’t make her so happy showin’ her face anyway.’ The lady chuckled and started coughing violently. 

‘Are you alright?’

‘Oh yeah sweet, I’m all good. Cold weather’s got on my chest. I’m gettin’ old. I used to have purdy blonde hair like you too.’

The girl instinctively stroked her hair. She was proud of it. No dye, no expensive products or extensions. It was all hers.

Just then the man approached and the girl’s veil of comfort shrivelled to a rock in her gut.

‘Fixin’ to leave me here woman?’ 

The lady turned to him and rolled her eyes witheringly. ‘I got tired of waitin’ around for you all day. S’pose you were down the liquor aisle?’ The southernness of the accent finally registering.

The man fixed the girl with his brown smile. 

‘Ah hush now. Aint nothin’ wrong with a man enjoyin’ a little whisky.’ He set down another bottle of the same rye he’d bought the day before. And a can.

‘What’s this?’ said the lady picking it up and reading the label. ‘San Marz- you aint like ‘maters, whut you doin?’

The man smiled at the girl again and the tip of his tongue traced his thin top lip. ‘This young lady said they was good. Super juicy.’ 

The woman looked at her husband and then at the girl. She snorted and put the tin on the conveyor. 

The girl felt her hand start to tremble slightly and she fought to maintain her smile as she struggled to cope with the eye contact.

‘You alright hun?’ the lady said, looking back at her.

‘Yeah, I’m fine.’ The girl scanned the whisky and the can of tomatoes. ‘Is that everything you needed?’

‘That’s it. You sure you’re alright hun?’

‘Yeah, just a little faint. That’s fifty-eight ninety-five please.’

The woman smiled again and fished in her purse. She handed the notes over. 

The girl fixed her change. ‘Have a great day.’

‘You too hun.’

The couple walked away, the man gradually raking his stare from the girl’s face. 

The lady turned a few feet away. ‘It’s the Black Doctor of the Pines you need to be worryin’ about. He don’t like little white girls out there partyin’. Likes to feed ‘em all kinds of negro mumbo jumbo to make ‘em sleepy.’

The girl struggled to stop her mouth gaping and her hair stood on end. She shifted in her seat.

‘Now now woman, you can’t be sayin’ negro no more.’ The man chuckled and smiled at the girl again. The woman joined in laughing and they left as she coughed violently again.

The girl swung her chair around to face the next customer. She was about to speak when a hand touched her shoulder. She spun quickly and recoiled. It was the manager.

‘Jeez, what’s got into you? Did those people say something?’

She sighed relief. ‘No, no, it’s fine. I’m fine.’

‘Okay. Well Danny’s called in sick for the week. So, can you cover him tomorrow? It’s a late.’

‘Um, yeah. That’s fine. I need all the hours I can get.’

‘Great. Thank you.’

As the manager walked away, the girl’s gaze drifted through the window out into the parking lot. A beat-up F-150 truck cruised past. Inside the woman looked like she was talking excitedly. The man caught the girl’s eye and smiled. She looked away quickly.

‘Hey there, did you find everything you wanted today?’

At 10pm the store was almost empty. In the back, the manager was counting the takings. One register remained open and a vacant acne faced twenty-something employee sat clicking away at his phone, barely using the screen to hide it. He was planning on meeting up with his girlfriend when he got off at 11. They were exchanging elaborate explicit plans that would inevitably end in a few minutes of clunky missionary. He was tucked under the register desk.

Behind him the automatic doors opened and closed. He didn’t look up.

The girl was at the back of the store on a stool putting packets of instant ramen on a high shelf. A familiar smell tickled her awareness. Rye whisky and stale cigarettes. Her hair prickled.

‘Them ‘maters was good.’

She had anticipated it by a fraction of a second, which was the only thing that stopped her getting startled off the stool. 

‘Sir, you almost gave me a heart attack,’ she said, struggling not to sound angry.

‘Super juicy.’

The girl turned and stepped down carefully placing the brace boot. The man was just a foot and a half behind her. It looked as though he had been staring at her ass. His tongue hovered just inside the thin parted lips.

‘I’m glad you liked them. Did your wife forget something when you came in here yesterday?’

‘Nope. Need to git some more backa.’

‘Oh, of course. Well, that’s at the small register by the entrance way, sir, remember I told you last time?’ Again, she struggled to regulate her voice. The smile she flashed him was forced. The small muscles in her face were trembling.

‘I thought I might see if there’s anythin’ else super juicy for me back here.’

Fury rose, but in her white lit isolation, back against the Asian foods, she was too afraid to let it out.

‘Oh, um, well, there’s, um, all kinds of stuff here. I’m sorry, was there something particular you were looking for?’

The man leaned towards her. A tilt of the neck, a rounding of the shoulders. Such a small movement, it probably wouldn’t even show up on the surveillance tape. He smiled and between the sagging lids of his dark eyes, something mean flickered.

‘I’m always lookin’ sugar.’

‘Attention customers, FreshMart will be closing in five minutes. Please can all remaining customers take their groceries to the registers. Please can all remaining customers take their groceries to the registers. Thank you.’

‘Oh. Um, I’ve got to go help.’

‘Aint you gotta finish puttin’ this gook shit away?’

‘Um, I’ll do that later.’

‘Later huh.’

The girl smoothed her apron and made to step around the man. He took a half step to head her off. 

‘Oh, um, sorry sir I need to get by.’

He smiled at her again and stepped back, holding out a hand to offer her passage. ‘Go ahead.’

She smiled uncomfortably and walked past, dropping her eyes to the ground to avoid his. She took three or four fast steps.

‘Super juicy,’ he muttered before cackling to himself.

She didn’t turn but she felt her cheeks flush violently and she succumbed to the trembling when she turned behind the end of the aisle. A tear rolled down her cheek. She wiped it away and took a deep breath, looking up to the tangle of extractor tubes in the rafters. 

‘You okay?’

‘Oh, um, yeah. I’m fine. Do you need me to help on the registers?’ 

The manager looked over to the acne faced twenty-something. There was just one customer at the checkout and one approaching it with a bottle of wine in his hand. Nobody else was nearby. He looked back at the girl and saw the hint of redness around her eyes.

‘I think we’re covered on the registers. Are you sure you’re alright?’

Just as he asked, the girl looked past his shoulder into the parking lot. It was almost totally vacant. A dark sedan and an almost new shiny Dodge Ram were parked two spaces apart near the doors to the store. Way in the back was the girl’s old Impala and right next to it was a beat-up F-150. 

The girl’s lip started to tremble again. She felt herself start to crumple. The manager caught her.

‘Whoa, whoa, Jesus, let’s get you a seat.’ He half dragged her to a vacant register and helped her into the seat. 

The customers in line at the other register turned to see what the fuss was about. The acne-faced twenty-something panicked momentarily because his hard on was being concealed by the desk and he thought he’d have to get up to help. He blushed. Both customers in his line turned to gawp. 

The manager swivelled the chair the girl was sitting on so she couldn’t see the spectators. 

‘Deep breaths. Do you need some water?’

‘No. It’s. It’s the guy’

The manager turned to look at the register behind where everyone was still staring. 

The twenty-something’s boner was subsiding. He was pretty sure the apron would cover it now. He started to get up.

‘What guy?’

‘The one from yesterday with his wife. In the red cap.’

‘What did he do?’

‘I don’t know. Nothing. He just keeps showing up. Saying things.’

‘What do you mean saying things? What’s he saying?’

‘I don’t know. Super juicy.’

‘What? What does that mean? What do you mean?’

She was starting to lose control of her breathing.

‘Is he here? Did he do something just now?’

‘He’s at the back. I was stacking ramen.’

The manager looked up and down the aisle directly in front of where they were sitting. The only movement was subtly flickering white halogen bulb at the end.

‘Okay, let’s get you to the break room.’

She shook her head and sniffed. The tears were coming fast now.

The manager stood her up and together they walked towards the break room door at the end of the row of registers. He looked down each aisle. Nothing.

Inside he helped her sit down at the white plastic table. She was focusing on her breath. Trying to breathe in through her nose, out through her mouth.

‘Are you okay in here if I go and look for this guy? You can lock the door from the inside.’ He was buzzing with indignation. His voice high-pitched and eyebrows raised.

She nodded. ‘What are you going to say to him?’

The manager’s face took on an expression of thoughtfulness. He chewed his top lip for several seconds. He couldn’t find a firm answer.

‘I won’t stand for intimidation of my staff. It’s not acceptable.’

He left the room. But his indignation was markedly less confident. 

Ten minutes later, according to the white plastic clock on the wall, the manager returned. 

‘He’s gone.’

The girl looked up at him. ‘What happened?’

‘Nothing. He must’ve left while we were in here before. I’ve checked everywhere, even out back. He’s not in the building. I asked Jesse to shut everything up. What exactly did he do? I’m serious, do we need to get the police involved or something?’

The girl sighed. ‘He just keeps staring at me. Smiling at me with this creepy look on his face.’

The manager thought. He looked concerned but also confused. ‘I don’t know what we’d say to the cops. I guess they’d just say he’s not done anything illegal.’

She could tell he felt uncomfortable saying it. He sounded apologetic. But the girl wasn’t sure if that was genuine or through fear that she might escalate something to corporate.

She smiled sympathetically and nodded. ‘It’s okay. I probably overreacted.’  

The manager thought about agreeing, but realised it was a mistake. 

‘Do you want to take off? Me and Jesse can close.’

She smiled and nodded. ‘Thanks.’

‘Okay, I’m gonna stay in here and fill in this incident report sheet.’ He waved the sheet in the air, a look of sympathy tinged with exasperation on his face.

As soon as she opened the break room door, she looked back out into the parking lot. The F-150 truck was still there. Parked next to her car. She felt herself start to sweat and the trembling began again. She looked around for Jesse. He wasn’t out there. 

Jesse was in the back room “tidying up”. Which consisted of texting his girlfriend that the girl at work “must be on her period, she fainted” which meant he was closing by himself, which was the only thing preventing him from “being in you right now.”

The girl forced her eyes back toward the truck. She searched the darkness for any sign of movement. Any sign that he was in there. But it was too far away and too dark. 

She still hadn’t let go of the break room door handle, so she pushed it back open.

‘His truck’s still out there.’

The manager looked up. He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that guy. His truck is still out there. Parked next to mine.’

‘How do you know what car he drives?’

‘Why does that matter? I saw him in it yesterday. He’s still out there.’

The manager sighed, this time not attempting to supress it. He stood and stepped to the doorway. The girl pointed at the truck.

‘That one. Right there next to mine.’

Just then the F-150 rattled into life and the headlights turned on. It lingered for a second or two and then turned out of the spot and drove towards the exit.

The girl and the manager watched it go. Then the manager turned to the girl.

‘See, it’s gone now. You’re good.’

She frowned and nodded. ‘Yeah.’

‘You still wanna take off? Or do you wanna finish up your shift?’

‘Um, can I just hang out here and leave with you guys?’

The manager nodded.

Forty-five minutes later the girl and Jesse huddled by the door while the manager locked it and slung the heavy chain through the push bars. Ever since a break in two years ago, the insurance people required extra measures. This chain was deemed extra enough.

The girl looked around. It was quiet. An empty bag of tortilla chips rustled past them on the sidewalk, strolling in the breeze.

‘Alright. I’ll see you two tomorrow.’

‘No, you won’t,’ Jesse said. ‘Day off tomorrow. I’m staying in bed till 6.’

‘See ya,’ the girl waved. She played with the seam of her jacket sleeve as she walked towards her car. She moved quick.

Before getting into the car, she checked the back seat.

She never checked her mirrors as much as she did on that drive home.

‘Oh hey, your brother dropped something by for you about 10 this morning. It’s in a bag in your locker,’ the manager said when the girl came through the staff room door at 1pm the next day. He was tying up his shoes ready to leave for the day.

The girl looked confused. ‘My brother? What is it?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t open it. Thought it might be rude.’

‘My brother’s in school. It’s Thursday.’

The manager shrugged. ‘He said your mom told him to bring it for you.’

The girl frowned hard, crossed the room and opened her locker. A crumpled grocery bag was in the middle on top of the spare sweater she had. Her name was written on the bag in black marker in handwriting she didn’t recognise. She took it out and opened the bag. It was a beat-up old book. She turned it over and looked at the cover. A Bob Ross style print of a pine barrens landscape. “New Jersey Folk Tales: The Black Dog and other Stories.”

The girl’s hair stood on end and her eyes widened. ‘What the fuck.’

‘What is it? You okay?’

‘It’s not my brother. It’s that weird guy and his wife. I told her me and my friends used to be into this stuff.’

‘Okay. Couldn’t it be one of your buddies? Why did you tell her that?’

The girl turned and stared at the manager angrily. He looked confused.

‘What did he say? The kid who brought this. What did he look like?’

‘Erm, I can’t really remember clearly. Just normal, you know. Like I guess kinda tall and gangly. Maybe fourteen or fifteen. Just normal. Brown messy hair.’

‘My brother isn’t like that. I don’t know anyone like that.’

‘What do you mean you don’t know anyone like that? Half the world is like that.’

‘Yeah, but not my friends. I don’t have friends like that.’

‘Okay. I don’t know what to tell you. That’s what he was like. Maybe it was some kid from school who likes you. I don’t know. He was kinda awkward. Just said your mom told him to bring it.’

‘He wasn’t my fucking brother. My brother was at school, he’s twelve. It’s that guy and his wife. They’re fucking with me.’

The manager couldn’t supress his derision. ‘It was just a kid. I think you’re being a bit dramatic here. It’s just a book. Probably just some kid with a crush on you or something.’

‘Are you kidding? How is this dramatic? Sending some weird kid to fuck with me. Waiting in the lot till I finish. Hanging around while I’m working. I caught him staring at my ass yesterday. It’s fucked up.’

‘Okay well it wasn’t a couple. It was just a kid. Probably some kid trying to impress you or something. Do you need to go home or relax or something?’ He sounded annoyed rather than genuinely concerned.

The girl clenched her teeth and tossed the book into the trash can by the bench. ‘Forget it.’

‘The manager held his hands up in mock surrender. ‘Look. It’s you, Janice and Richard tonight. Rich’s big and grumpy looking. I’m sure he can protect you.’

The girl shot an angry look and the manager’s face fell and blushed. He realised he was walking on thin HR ice. He went to say something then couldn’t form a proper sentence and slung his backpack on this shoulder and ducked out of the room.

The girl closed her eyes and breathed deeply, clenching and unclenching her fists. 

Ten minutes later the girl was in the storeroom taking inventory when her phone buzzed in her pocket. She checked it and it was a text from the manager.

I’m sorry if you thought I wasn’t taking you serious before. Where in the store were you when he looked at you like that? Maybe I can check the security cameras, see if they show anything?

The girl sighed and her heart started to beat a little faster as she remembered the look in the man’s eyes when she climbed down off the steps the day before.

I was stacking ramen on the steps. He got right up behind me. He was staring at my ass.

The girl watched the three dots as the manager typed his reply. They stopped and started five or six times before a message finally came through.

So you were up the steps? How high? Like just one step or a couple or?

The girl sighed and looked up at the corrugated metal roof. Yes, her ass had been eye level.

Forget about it.

The dots danced for intermittently for a minute before they stopped altogether.

The girl pocketed her cell, then clenched her fist and teeth. ‘Asshole.’

She took a deep breath and scanned the barcode on the next case before opening it with the box cutter.

At the end of her shift, the girl’s shoulders were starting to loosen. 

She’d been in back most of her shift but came out every half hour or so to scan the parking lot. Maybe the manager was right, Richard was intimidating. He was on the registers all day, as usual. Someone his size couldn’t stand up for ten hours. But even seated he seemed to tower over top of anyone else and his fleshy face looked mean, even though he was soft spoken and kind of shy underneath it all. Like an American bulldog or one of those big badly bred boxer dogs or something.

She checked the trash can as she left the staff room with her bag on her shoulder. The book was still in there. The hair on her neck prickled.

Richard was shuffling past her breathing heavy. ‘Night.’

‘Goodnight Richard. Can’t wait to get home.’

Richard smiled and nodded. 

She walked to the main door and they opened automatically. The only cars in the lot were hers, Richard’s ridiculously small fiat and Janice’s truck. She crossed the lot and got into her Impala. She started it up and pulled out of the space. She swung out of the lot. On the left was a ten-yard stretch of well pruned inkberry holly hedge on top of a brick wall along a turnout where the bus to the strip mall stopped. Parked at 45 degrees was an old F-150. Its headlights were on and they dazzled the girl as she pulled past.

Her heart jumped and she stepped on the gas. She accelerated to the stop sign where the entrance road joined Fort Dix Road, eyes fixed on the rear view. 

The F-150 turned out. 

‘Fuck.’

The girl didn’t stop at the sign. Part of her wished there was a cop around to see her ignore the sign but there was nothing other than the dulled yellow beams of the F-150. 

She blew past the crossroad at the top of town, barely registering the red of the stoplights on her approach. There was no crossing traffic at this time out here.

The F-150 was still in her rearview. Maybe sixty feet back. He blew the lights too.

‘Fuck.’

The girl looked back up at the road. There were three miles of straight asphalt before Juliustown. The road was flanked by farmland. And hulking on the horizon behind the two-horse town was the ink blackness of the pine barrens.

She checked her rearview again. The F-150 was getting closer. 

‘Fuck.’

She squeezed the wheel with both hands as she passed the last pair of streetlights on the edge of town and leant hard on the gas. 

Darkness swallowed the Impala.