Home Alone

I was just 12 years old when this happened. This incident has by far been the creepiest experience of my life. To this day I think about all that could have gone wrong, and what could have happened to me.

It was a windy autumn day, the day my parents left me home alone for the first time. They were going to visit my grandmother who lived in a nearby city. She was ill and my parents were going to her house to take care of her. I didn’t have any siblings, so my parents had asked my 22-year-old cousin to come and stay with me till they returned.

Everything should have gone smoothly, until my cousin suddenly texted my mom, the night before they left, saying she was caught up at a work emergency and would only be able to come and stay with me a day later than originally planned.

My parents didn’t want to leave their young daughter alone, even for a day, but since the flight tickets had already been booked, they decided I could spend at least a day without parental supervision.

Of course, they told me at least a dozen times to keep the doors and windows locked and not to answer the door bell to anyone.

***

Six hours after my parents had left for the airport, I was sprawled out on my bed, an empty pizza box and an empty glass of coca cola with a few melting ice cubes at the bottom beside me, as the T.V. loudly announced the next eliminated contestant on my favourite cooking show. This day had been going great so far. I had been lazing around ever since my parents had left. The only thing that hadn’t gone to plan was me trying to cook some eggs and failing miserably. The putrid stench of burnt eggs and smoke was so aggravating I had opened the window to let it all out. I decided there and then, to forget about cooking anything until my cousin came and just resorted to pizza for the rest of my meals.

I had been watching TV, eating and drinking ever since. Everything seemed to be going fine, when all of a sudden, the TV screen suddenly changed and I was shaken out of the daze I had fallen into while watching the show. The TV now showed an urgent news alert which had probably interrupted all the channels on the television. A bald news reporter with a grim expression on his face appeared on the screen and a headline flashed below him in bright yellow colours.

‘Escaped Serial Killer on The Loose in **** locality’.

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. An escaped serial killer? In my locality? My surprise quickly turned into a stab of fear in my chest.

The news reporter began urgently, describing the unspeakable crimes of the escaped man, while his photo appeared beside him.

It was an alarming mugshot of a man who looked to be in his late forties, with long, dark hair falling wildly around his cheeks and an abnormally wide grin etched upon his face. But the most disturbing part was his eyes, his bloodshot eyes with a conspicuous psychopathic glint that sent chills up my spine.

The news report continued with details of how the person was highly dangerous and had escaped a few hours ago. The people living in my locality were advised to lock all their doors and windows and go on a short lockdown until the escaped serial killer was caught.

I quickly got up and hurried downstairs. I remember having locked all the windows and doors carefully immediately after my parents had left. But it didn’t hurt to check. I took a quick sweep of the rooms, my parents’ bedroom, the guest bedroom, the living room, the storage area, all the bathrooms. Just as I exited the guest restroom, a shrill ringing sound filled the air and I was mildly startled for a second before realizing it was my phone.

I heaved a sigh of relief before hurrying back upstairs to my room, picking up the phone and looking at the screen. It was an unknown number and I didn’t have Caller ID so I couldn’t see who it was.

I have to admit, I was a little nervous, what with the situation and then this unknown number suddenly calling me.

“Hello?” I said loudly, holding the receiver to my ear.

I waited for a few seconds. I could hear heavy breathing on the other end.

My eyes worriedly started to shift from one corner of the room to the other, while I whispered another ‘hello’, this time softer, into the phone.

Suddenly I heard a voice at the other end. It was coarse and rough, heavy and deep, like its owner had had a bad throat infection for a really long time. He just said one word, “smoke”.

I paused, staring blankly at the wall, with my mouth slightly open.

Smoke? What smoke?

I heard the sound from my phone, indicating that the call had been cut and I slowly lowered my hand, still racking my brains about smoke.

Smoke. Smoke… SMOKE!

I jumped higher than my fast-beating heart inside my body, as the realization dawned on me. I had burnt the eggs this morning and left the window open to let the smoke out… and I had not yet checked the kitchen before the phone rang…

My hands started shaking with dread and adrenaline as I sprinted down the stairs at top speed towards the kitchen, which was about 10 yards away from my staircase.

As I reached the bottom step, my racing heart sank to the pit of my stomach as I realized I was too late. The silhouette of a man was standing in the doorway of the kitchen.

A man with long, dark hair falling wildly around his cheeks, an abnormally wide grin etched upon his face, and disturbing bloodshot eyes that had the conspicuous psychopathic glint that sent chills up my spine yet again. The only difference was a tightly clamped long butcher’s knife from our kitchen.

I reacted before he did. I turned on my heels and dashed back up the stairs faster than I ever had in my life. I heard a throaty yell from behind and thundering footsteps started running after me.

A panicked scream escaped my lips as I scrambled up to my bedroom. I flung open the door, just as the serial killer was on the top step of the staircase and bolted the door as hard as I could. I never regretted not having a lock on my door more than now. My only option now was to hide in the tiny bathroom attached to my bedroom and stay there. Without thinking too much, I shut myself in the bathroom. Fortunately, it had a lock. Unfortunately, there was a small glass window at the top of the window…

I had only just turned the lock, before my bedroom door was pushed open and the heavy footsteps barged in. My face contorted with fear as the man flung open cabinets and closets in search of me. I had to call the police. But my hope quickly faded as I realised the mistake I had made.

In my state of sheer panic, I had left my cell phone on the bed!

I stood there kicking myself for being so incredibly foolish.

Meanwhile, the man finally realized I wasn’t in the closets and hurried towards the bathroom door. I had never feared for my life more than I did when I saw his hideous face peering at me through the glass panel. With one swing of his fist, it shattered and glass shards were sprayed in all directions as my loud sobs and his maniacal laugh echoed into the bathroom.

He pushed his arm through the door and started fumbling around with his hand looking for the lock.

This was my chance! I grabbed the pointiest scissors from the bathroom counter, ran towards the door and stabbed his hand as hard as I could, sinking the scissors in as deep as possible.

His laughter quickly turned to agonizing cries of pain. I pulled out the scissors and stabbed him again, this time twisting it even more. He cursed furiously and withdrew his bleeding hand from the panel.

I immediately moved back and lay flat against the side of the wall, breathing hard.

The man groaned loudly and this time, all the hair on my neck stood up as he threw the knife away in frustration and slammed his body on the door, making it shudder.

If he continued like this, the door would give way sooner rather than later. I silently sobbed into my hand.

A few seconds later he again slammed into the door. And then Again… And again… And again.

I was waiting for the next blow, it was evident to me that in the next big push, the door would finally fly off its hinges.

But the door held firm, much to my surprise, because the next blow never came. There was an uneasy silence as I contemplated what he could be doing… when he suddenly cursed loudly, making a jump and miraculously, I heard his footsteps thundering towards what I assumed was the window. There was a small click, and I heard the window sliding up. There was a little grunting and then finally silence.

Did the man just jump from the window of my room to the street below after making all this effort to kill me?

I pinched myself to see if this was real… why did he just escape?

But that question was soon answered as I once again, heard loud footsteps charging up the stairs. Many of them.

For a second, I had the horrible feeling that he had returned, only to hear the unmistakable sentence echoing loudly from the staircase up to the room.

“Surrender your weapons, it’s the police!”

I gave a huge cry of joy and rushed forward to open the lock in a state of frenzy.

Three policemen barged into the room just as I exited the bathroom.

They quickly shouted at me to raise my arms but when they saw I was just a little girl, they lowered their weapons as one of them moved towards me. The second one, a guy with a long moustache asked me in a frantic voice where the murderer was and I pointed towards the window. The third policeman sprinted back down the stairs, presumably towards the street to catch the man while Mr. Moustache looked down from the window to see if there was any trace of him.

The next few hours were a blur of red and blue lights, police cars, urgent phone calls from my parents saying they were coming home instantly, and flashes of the ride in the ambulance to the hospital as I passed out from exhaustion sometime after. I was unharmed, but mentally traumatized and disturbed by what I had been through.

It turns out, one of the neighbours saw the serial killer break into my house and called the police. My screams made it clear to the neighbours that I was in trouble. The police arrived just in the nick of time and on hearing the commotion, he quickly escaped through the window.

The deranged man made it to a few blocks away from my house, before being caught.

As my parents returned, both of their faces were white as A4 sheets stacked in my printer, the sheer relief and terror very apparent not just on their faces, but also in their body language. They had never hugged me more tightly in my life till that moment.

I’m sixteen now, and the prospect of staying home alone still freaks me out to some extent.

To this day, I often wonder what could have happened to me, had that man managed to successfully break into the bathroom before the police arrived.