After School Nightmare

As a teenager, I usually walked home from school using a wooded shortcut. The path was used often enough to be recognizable, but sometimes I was alone. One afternoon I noticed a man standing just off the trail, apparently talking on a phone. I had seen him there several times recently, although I had never noticed him before.

The next time I passed him, the path was empty and I felt uneasy. I kept watching him from the corner of my eye. After I had walked a short distance, he stopped talking, crouched down, and began handling a cloth and a brown glass bottle. When he looked up and saw me watching, his expression suggested that he had been caught but did not intend to stop.

He dropped the objects and sprinted toward me with the cloth in his hand. I threw down my heavy backpack and ran uphill toward the neighborhood. He was much faster than I expected and began gaining on me. I reached a row of fenced backyards and started shouting for help while jumping over the fences, hoping to slow him down.

By the second yard he was almost close enough to grab my leg. I kept running and reached the yard of a family whose large dog I knew. The dog was outside. When he saw me, he wagged his tail, then noticed the man behind me and began growling.

I jumped into the yard and the man tried to follow. The dog leapt at him, coming so close to his face that he fell backward into the neighboring yard. I landed inside the dog’s yard while the animal barked and lunged at the fence. The man and I stared at each other for several seconds. He looked furious, then turned and ran back down the hill.

I was too shocked to move until the dog licked my face. I ran to the back door and pounded on it, but no one was home. I climbed another fence, ran the rest of the way to my house, and called the police. I gave them a description and told them about the cloth and bottle. The man’s bag and every trace of him were gone. Officers found my backpack in a muddy puddle and said they would keep looking, but the man was never identified.

I still use caution when walking alone, but I no longer assume that a familiar path is safe simply because other people use it. I am grateful that the dog was outside that afternoon.