Maybe I Did Meet Him Twice

New Years 2009 (going into 2010) I went to visit a friend who was attending university at a nearby city. The house she lived in happened to be a street away from the house I was born in and spent the first 7 years of my life in, so I knew the area reasonably well.

There were 4 of us girls, but only myself and the girl who was going uni knew the area. Basically her house was at the edge of a walled park, which was locked overnight dusk to dawn. On the other side of the park was the main body of the city, including the uni itself and the majority of the pubs/clubs/drinking places. To get from one to the other you have to go around this park, which for the most part is reasonably well-lit.

We'd spent the night out over New Years, and all of us were pretty drunk. The token lightweight was smashed, the normally 'sensible' one of the three of us was hiccuping and falling all over the place saying she loved us all (feeling was mutual), the uni-goer was the usually messy drunk but she seemed to be holding herself together, though she and I were also stumbling and noticeably drunk anyway.

We took the route over the top of the park because it was marginally quicker. As we walked along we passed the opening of a back alley, where we saw a man just standing in the middle of the lane about 30 yards away. He wasn't on his phone, he wasn't with anyone, he was just stood, stock-still and dressed in dark, non-descript clothes directly in the middle of the empty alleyway and facing toward us.

Uni girl and I clocked eyes and both of us knew something was up with this picture. Sensible girl drunkenly decided it would be a great time to yell 'Happy New Year!' at the top of her lungs and enthusiastically wave at him. Uni girl and I dragged her (we were already supporting Lightweight) away from the alley way, and quick marched both of them onward.

Uni girl asked me if he was following us, and my heart stopped as I turned my head and saw he'd left the alleyway. We sped up.

Now, Uni girl and I realised the predicament easily. We were closer to the front entrance to her house (it was terraced, so a huge row of connected houses) but that would mean the man (who was casually walking behind us, but definitely gaining) would almost certainly know which house we were staying in - and which house my friend lived in. Otherwise we could walk around the block, go up the back alleyway and go in through the rear entrance, which was a longer journey, but had more opportunity to lose him.

We decided to take the risk to go round the back, and luckily lost him before we got to alley entrance so he wasn't 100% on where we'd gone, or which house we'd gone into.

Uni girl and I got Sensible girl and Lightweight settled down, and began sneaking looks out the front window curtains, only to see him walking up and down the road on the other side, quite obviously peering into windows and looking at lights that were on in the houses. Our skin crawled so we phoned the non-emergency police number and told them what had happened. They sent a car around the block and we saw the dude quickly disappear after that.

The next morning we told the other two what had happened; they had no clue what danger we had been in. We had the tv on in the background, and the local news came on. A girl had been separated from her friends while drunk the night before and had been attacked and raped in the same road we saw the man in the first place. Collectively we were shaken by what could've been.

The second part occurred when I happened to move back to the area in 2014. By then I'd totally forgotten about this episode, so I was trying to settle in. My job, which had brought me to the area, was again on the other side of the park, this time at the bottom, and my new house was a few roads back from where Uni girl's had been. So I basically would walk this same road every day to and from work, through the park during daytime and along the lower wall of the park at night. I would work late on some days, with my hours rota'd until 11pm, but often I wouldn't leave to walk home until 12am, 1am or even sometimes 2am. It was a shit job.

They kept putting me in on Friday and Saturday nights, which I didn't mind at all. But then 2 Saturdays in a row I felt like I was being followed by someone, though both times I was able to go into a shop to lose them, or to get a friend who lived on the way to come outside their house and 'chat' to me until the person 'following' turned around or went a different way.

I wasn't rota'd for weekends for a little bit, so it didn't escalate, and it didn't happen on weekdays, so I thought I was being paranoid. A couple months later, however, I stayed late at work on a Friday again, got out at 1:30am exhausted and ready for my bed.

I was sleepily wandering my way home, not really paying attention to my surroundings, when a man from the other side of the road crossed toward me. I was immediately alert, wondering what he wanted.

He asked me if I had a light, but I said sorry, no, I don't smoke, and kept walking.

He kept going in the opposite direction behind me, but then I heard his feet turn and his footsteps follow behind me.

I just kept walking, maybe he was going home for a light?

I took my next turning, and sure enough he did too. We were walking alongside a fairly busy main road, well lit and had cars going past every few minutes. But I was about to turn into a much quieter residential area where the lights were less frequent and there wouldn't be cars going past unless going to a house.

Not wanting to be paranoid I decided to do a test on whether this guy was just innocently heading home or actually had another purpose for turning around behind me.

This, btw, is when my brain decides to remind me we are literally walking right past the house where the first incident happened...

I turn into the residential area. The first building on the right is a funeral home, which has two car ports in the back where they keep the hearses. I scooted down past the house, barely not breaking into a full-on run. I hid in one of the car ports, sticking my head out in the shadow to watch if he'd first follow me into the residential area, and secondly if he'd just walk straight past the little alley I was hiding in.

Sure enough he turned into the residential area...

... He walked halfway across the alley opening...

... Then began visibly searching for me in the two directions I could've gone.

If I'd kept walking I would have been very visible.

Instead he gave up after a few seconds of just walking back and forward, shrugged his shoulders and began walking back where he came from.

I went home, shaken by what I'd seen, and asked my bosses if I could possibly not work late on Friday and Saturdays because I'd been followed recently on 3 occasions. Their response was that it wasn't possible to get 'preferential treatment' and so if I wanted to be safe, they recommended I take a taxi, which they wouldn't pay for and would cost me an hour's pay for a 2 minute drive (I lived a 12 minute walk from my work place.)