Real Encounters

*Man in tattered clothes*

When I was teenager (15 years old), I was on the phone with my boyfriend at the time and hanging out on the computer. The house I lived in at the time had giant windows on the first floor, like 8′ by 8′. I was in one of the rooms with the huge windows and had opened the drapes to let some light in. While talking to my boyfriend, I had this super eerie feeling that I was being watched and I slowly turned towards the window and saw a man in tattered clothes with sweat dripping off every part of his body pressed up against my window with his hands cupped over his eyes and gave me this horrifying smile.

I immediately dropped the phone (I was on a phone with a chord) and ran into the next room and grabbed the chord-less phone. I told my boyfriend what was happening and I started crying trying to remember when all of the doors were locked. The man had to crawl over a few bushes in order to get that close to the window which made me feel like he didn’t have the best intentions. That’s when the doorbell started ringing. I poked my head around the corner to see the front door (French doors with glass panes) and see the man trying to get in the house by opening the door.

At this point I’m absolutely freaking out and my boyfriend tells me to call my mom. My mom answers at work and she told me to hide and call the police. I called the cops crying and then noticed out of the corner of my eye from a window in the back of the house that the man is making circles around my house looking for a way to get in. The dispatcher told me to get somewhere where he couldn’t see me and get a weapon if I felt like it would make me more comfortable. I grabbed a long chef’s knife and stood sobbing in a small gap between my back door and a hallway where I couldn’t be seen through any windows. Then I remembered that a first floor window was unlocked and I couldn’t see or hear the man anymore.

Eventually I hear a loud rap on my door and slowly go investigate it and it’s a policeman. He asks me to come outside with him so he can look in the house and make sure the man didn’t find a way in. Right after we get outside, my boyfriend’s step dad pulls into my driveway (my bf had called him to come check on me – bf was out of town) and lets me sit with him in his car while the policeman, gun drawn, checks out the house.

The cop never found anything, no trace of the guy, no nothing. I was terrified and scared to stay home alone for quite a long time after that. I still freak out when my doorbell rings and I’m not expecting anyone, and I’m terrified that I’ll find someone else staring at me through windows whenever I’m alone in a place with ground-level windows.