Ruth Hunter was working her shift at Walgreens in Livermore Falls when she saw a man step up to the register with a bottle of Gatorade.

Hunter went over to the counter to ring up the man’s purchase. He asked her for a pack of Marlboro Black Red cigarettes.

The 55-year-old clerk asked the customer for an ID because you need to be 21 or older to buy cigarettes. The man, who was wearing gloves and a blue disposable surgical mask, fished around in his pocket.

But instead of a driver’s license, he pulled out a gun.

“It was a real gun,” Hunter said in an interview Thursday.

That was the beginning of an armed robbery on Dec. 4 that has left Hunter shaken and unable to work. Two weeks later, despite releasing security camera photos of the subject, no one has been arrested in connection with the crime.

Hunter, the mother of four adult children and grandmother of two, said she hasn’t been able sleep since.

“It is a daily struggle,” she said.

After brandishing the gun, Hunter said, the man told her to open the cash register. But because a sale had been entered, the draw wouldn’t open until the item was paid for.

“I was so nervous,” Hunter said.

Hunter said she asked the man if he wanted her to call someone over to open the register, and he said yes. Hunter called for the shift leader but before she arrived at the counter, the customer walked out the door with the cigarettes but not the Gatorade.

The man didn’t run, she said. He calmly walked out the door, and Hunter and the shift leader saw him walk down nearby Reynolds Avenue.

“I was hysterically crying,” Hunter said.

After police arrived, she answered their questions and went home.

Hunter, who has worked at Walgreens for three years, said she knows most of the customers by name but she didn’t recognize this one.

Upset after the robbery, Hunter went to see a mental health counselor, where she was diagnosed with acute post-traumatic stress disorder. She is in counseling.

“I haven’t been back to work. I can’t even drive to the store; it makes me cry. I can’t even go into the parking lot,” she said. “Being out of work and not getting paid is very stressful.”

Photos from the security surveillance footage have been posted on the Livermore Falls Police Department’s Facebook page and shared with media.

Anyone with information about the suspect, is asked to contact the police at 207-897-6425 or email Chief Abe Haroon at: [email protected].