The Gas Station Customer Who Warned Me to Lock the Door

I worked the overnight shift at a gas station on a highway, the dead hours from eleven to seven, mostly alone, mostly quiet, the kind of job where you get used to being the only lit-up thing for miles.

One slow night around three a low steady trucker came in, filled a coffee, bought some jerky, and paid. Normal guy, tired eyes, nothing unusual. As I handed him his change, though, he did not leave. He leaned in a little and said, quiet and even, not wanting to alarm me but wanting me to hear it: "Lock your door when I go. There is a man crouched down behind your ice machine, outside, by the window. He has been watching you. I saw him from the pumps."

My blood went cold. The ice machine sat outside, right against the big front window, in a dark spot the lights did not quite reach, a spot I could not see from behind the counter. The trucker said the man was low, tucked down against it, still, facing in, watching me work. He said he had noticed him while pumping and watched him not move the whole time, several minutes, just crouched there looking in at me.