Tom finished sweeping the floor for the second time. It was a slow night. They always got slower after everyone went home, after he was left alone in the store. But this was worse than normal. He hadn’t had a single customer all night.

There were truckers that sometimes stopped by early in the morning, making their way to Elizabeth’s Haven for the first ferry, but they seemed to be avoiding the store that night..

He regretted letting Daisy leave like that. Tom could tell she had been crying again. He wondered what had triggered it this time. Was it that yuppy jerk who picked up the stack of pizzas? They’d been rough, but he hadn’t heard any yelling.

It could have been a phone call, though.

He had helped at the pizza counter enough times to know that phone calls were way worse. People were much more willing to abuse people when they didn’t have to look them in the eyes.

Tom made his way back over to the chair behind the counter. He checked the security cameras pointed at the front and back of the store.

Completely still out there.

He’d always hoped he’d catch the raccoons ruining the dumpster someday. He’d had to clean the aftermath enough times that he thought he was at least due a show. But, as usual, he could see nothing.

Only Bradley had access to the cameras’ recordings, so no one had ever seen the infamous critters. They saw the mess they left behind and often heard them, but they had managed to escape capture.

He could hear Bradley in his mind, annoyed with him for losing the dumpster lock.

“That’s how they keep getting in,” Bradley scolded from the recesses of Tom’s memory. “Besides, those locks cost money. Do you want it to come out of your paycheck?”

He’s a prick, but it is weird…

The locks kept going missing, but no one ever admitted to doing it. It would probably all get blamed on Rodney now. He’d be an easy scapegoat.

The store was so quiet. Tom could hear the rolling of the hotdog spinner and the hum of the fluorescent lights. It was past the point in the night where his tired eyes could filter out the flickering of the lights. The dreary unnatural way they lit the space in their pale, somehow sickly glow.

Sickly. That was the word.

Tom scratched his arm. He had to find something to do, or this place was going to drive him insane.

He stopped himself. Is that what happened to Rodney?

He felt shitty for complaining. He was just bored. Who knows what Rodney was dealing with?

There had to be more to what happened. Tom wished he had bothered to ask Rodney for his phone number. If he had, he could at least check up on him and maybe feel a little less guilty.

It scratched at his mind. As the noise grew louder, it overcame his contemplation.

Tom looked up from the counter. There was definitely a noise. In the silence, he heard it again. There was a quiet scratching, but he couldn’t place the direction.

He checked the cameras again. Still nothing.

Again, he heard it. It was close.

Tom crept up from his seat and made his way into the aisle. He could still hear it under the fresh carpet.

He moved down the row as quietly as he could, listening, searching for the exact location of the sound.

It had to be raccoons.

Tom didn’t really care if they left him a mess now and then. He was pretty ‘live and let live‘ when it came to these sorts of things. But, as he made to turn away, a smile crept over his dimly lit face and he grabbed a broom. He crept back to the spot where he could still hear the scratch and held the brush aloft.

What’s a little scare?

Tom slammed the broom down hard on the floor and followed it with a few hard stomps. He listened. There was nothing by silence.

Suddenly, something behind the boards slammed back, shaking the floor beneath him.

Tom tumbled backwards, reaching out and grabbing the shelf before fully toppling over.

He stopped himself from falling but something metal dug into his shoulder. It must have been one of the hooks, poking through his polo and burying into his skin.

He froze in place, the dull pain in his shoulder already begging to throb. The hook had run along his skin. It was only a shallow stab, but it was definitely in his skin. He took a deep breath and slowly pulled away, gasping as the hook slid back out.

Safely unstuck, he scrambled back to his feet, catching his breath and rubbing his shoulder. He’d ripped his shirt, and a thin line of blood was ebbing through the fabric.

As he walked towards the bathroom, he considered how Lucy was going to make fun of him for this. And how Bradley would threaten to take the shirt out of his paycheck as well.

Looking at his polo in the mirror, it seemed beyond mending.

He felt so silly.

How big do raccoons even get, anyway?