Back when I was 18/19 years old (F) I was house sitting with a girl I was studying with. The family we were housesitting for went to the same church as her, but I didn’t really know them well myself. It was more to keep her company in a huge house. This was 1997 when the average teen like me didn’t have a cellphone.

During the week that we were house sitting it was a short break in the school calendar, which is why this family was away, and why the streets in the area were quieter than usual. My apartment as well as the house we sat for was not far from the university. My apartment was actually a 3 minute walk from it, and the house a further 5 min by car. So being a student neighbourhood it was particularly quiet this week.

The first weird thing that happened the week I was at this house was that I dreamed I was driving through a dark forest on a windy, hilly dirt road with no lights anywhere except for those from my car’s headlights. As I started to go down a hill the headlights suddenly cut out and everything went dark. The car slowed down to a stop and died. I woke up.

In the morning I went out to my car and it wouldn’t start. It had been working perfectly the day before. I had to call a guy to come fix it, it was the starter motor. Well that was the first creepy thing that happened that week.

A day or two later it was Friday. I planned on driving back home to my parents who lived in a smaller town about 45 minutes away. I packed up my stuff at the big house and was going to head over to my apartment to collect whatever else I needed for the weekend. That trip between the house and apartment was, as I mentioned, only 5 minutes or so away. Since it was winter it was dark by the time I left at around 7pm.

As I was driving from the house I noticed in my rear view mirror the headlights of the car behind me tailing me really close. When I turned, it turned. Back then I was cautious, but not overly so. Cautious enough to notice in such a short distance that something weird was going on behind me. But then when I pulled up to a traffic light it wasn’t there anymore. Relief.

Short lived. The car was now beside me. I looked to my right, and there was man inside. Alone. Smiling at me. Slightly manically. For a moment I thought, jeez I should really drive with a beanie on at night so people can’t see I’m a petite 5ft2 female with long blonde hair down to my waist. I also thought well he’s in the lane to turn right so I’m good. I pulled off, and the headlights were behind me again. So close I could barely see them over the back of my car. What an ass I thought. Who drives like that? Thank goodness my turn is coming up on the left soon.

After another minute or two of this tailgating I slowed down, strategically didn’t indicate, and made a sudden sharp left into my driveway, opened the automatic gates and shot inside. The gates closed behind me. Yay, that drama was over.

I gathered a few things from the car to take up with me and noticed on my way over to the stairwell that there was a man at the gate that had just closed behind me. He was still on the other side and I was at the far end of the parking lot, but I could make out it was the dude from the tailgating car. He was jumping up and down, shaking the gate with absolute rage. Well, I was safely on this side so I wasn’t completely gripped with fear. And besides, there was a group of students making a noise nearby arriving for a party or something.

I headed to the stairs and started going from basement / ground level to the first floor. Rounding the stairs on the first floor I noticed someone running across the parking lot towards the staircase. In hindsight I still can’t fathom why I didn’t put two and two together. I guess it’s because I subconsciously knew that there was the group being let in through the pedestrian gate.

As I was rounding the staircase between the second and third floors someone suddenly touched me. I spun around. The guy....

He had slipped in as part of the small crowd. He said something. I said something sassy back and told him to eff off. Then I turned my back on him to continue up the stairs. I lived on the third and last floor.

He grabbed me from behind, held my back against his chest with his left arm around my neck. I felt something being held against my right side. Ah crap. A knife. He led me down. I remember thinking that the light was broken on the bottom level. This can’t end well. But I was calm. I resisted slightly, he tightened his grip. I felt like I wasn’t getting enough oxygen. I started to become a dead weight. He started to drop me. I was groin level. I elbowed. It connected. He dropped me but spun around to face me. Ripped the front of my button down top. Then he stopped.

He looked at someone behind me. Someone taller than him. His eyes went wide. He turned and ran. I screamed. Then I too turned around to see who had come to help. There was no one there... but...

People came out of their apartments after that. The police were called. This was the second time they were there that night. What?

Turns out the other weird thing that happened was that my dad had already called the police and they had come past an hour before. My mom had had a weird feeling all evening and had hassled my dad endlessly that something bad was going to happen to me. She had been right.

As it turned out, they caught the guy. I identified him in a line up. He was a serial rapist in the area. He was accused of raping something like 14 woman. One had thrown herself out the first floor of her apartment to get away from him and broken her leg.

Weeks later the police called me. Before his trial his cell door had been left open. He was gone. Apparently an inside job.

Edit: I kept the more graphic details of the actual encounter on the stairs out of the story so as not to distract from the creepy aspects.